This Is Keanu Reeves’ World (And We’re All Just Living In It)
Keanu Reeves is everywhere today in popular culture. From Netflix to Toy Story to even Old Town Road, Tej Narayanan writes on the omnipresence of Mr. Wick
Ah, Keanu Reeves. To think there once was a time we only knew him as dumb surfer dude Ted “Theodore” Logan. The guy whose name everyone knew, but almost like an afterthought. The man who cut his teeth playing lovable idiots onscreen soon grew into one of the world’s foremost action stars.
Keanu was always one of those names that sort of flew under-the-radar growing up. He was never Brad Pitt, dominating the tabloids with his superstar relationships. He couldn’t keep up with Tom Cruise, either, who everyone knew for his death-defying stunts. He was always just…there, in the background.
And then, out of nowhere, he became the Internet’s boyfriend.
So many people love Keanu even though he seems to be the anti-movie star. He’s the guy who never was at the forefront of popular culture, but who remained lodged in everyone’s brains.
Many actors have been at the center of popular culture for a few years and then fallen off. Yet Keanu’s stayed there for decades. Maybe it’s because he broke the movie star mold in so many ways.
Keanu always seemed cool…but not in that way. He wasn’t edgy — he was the cool guy you could bring home to your mom. The guy who always air-touched ladies in pictures out of sheer respect.
He could kill people onscreen, but there was a grace and elegance to him in real-life. Sure, Keanu had his gravelly voice, ripped physique, and scraggly beard, but his fandom really came from his endearing nature. He became genuinely excited about something as nerdy as playing the role of “Johnny Silverhand” in Cyberpunk 2077. He got so excited when he got to play with puppies for an interview. Keanu has a childlike quality that makes him so lovable to the masses.
Onscreen, nobody considered Keanu an Oscar-worthy actor. Hell, it’s practically cinema parlance to mock his British accent (seriously, if you’ve never seen Bram Stoker’s Dracula, go treat yourself). He never had a Rain Man or a Dallas Buyers Club that made people go, “Now that guy needs an Oscar!”.
But he never had the opposite problem either, like Jason Statham, who is stuck in the action-movie genre at this point. He was just Keanu, the same every-man role over and over again. While that would be a stumbling block for most other actors, with Keanu, it became an asset. It made him seem normal. He was like an everyday figure, no mythic quality.
He wasn’t some chameleon thespian that could disappear into his roles, and never pretended to be. He was just a normal dude that loved to act. We saw him, we were like “Hey, it’s that guy!” and we could just settle in and relax.
Unlike some of his peers, Keanu was always open to trying new things in his career, from rom-coms to westerns to sci-fi thrillers. Originally, he was known for playing dumb characters before reinventing himself as an action hero with The Matrix. When people got tired of him there, he became a romantic star, with people swooning over him and Winona Ryder. Then he went back to action in his 50s with John Wick, right when everyone told him he was way too old to be an action star.
And even though his career moves didn’t always work (ahem *Constantine*), his enthusiasm when promoting movies really showed us that he was just a guy having the time of his life. And, frankly, his enjoyment rubbed off on us. Onscreen, Keanu was just Keanu — nothing was going to change that — but my god, was he always a joy to watch. His films, even if he played a jerk, were infused with so much pathos, so much fun, that it was impossible not to fall in love with him. His boyish charm simply leapt off the screen.
More so than all of that, in real life, he just came across as a real down-to-earth person. There was no Hollywood shallowness to him. He always was genuine, a guy whose existence seemed rooted in the real world rather than on an Instagram account. He actually seemed clueless, albeit charmed, when someone told him he had become the “Internet’s boyfriend.” His grammar was always eloquent and well-spoken. He never gave a Hollywood-ized politically correct answer in place of one he truly believed.
And others respected him for it. You can see it in the eyes of the interviewers, as well as his fellow cast members from over the years. The respect they have for him because of how real he always was.
Stephen Colbert even put him on the spot once, asking “What happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?” Keanu stops… and thinks, as a hush falls over the audience. There’s no attempt to brush off the question or make a joke because he’s genuinely pondering the question. You can tell he’s really thinking about it, for this audience doesn’t deserve an answer less than his true philosophy. Anything less would be a disservice.
The audience is in awe at how real he is, his lack of faux bravado. Even Colbert seems fixed upon Reeves, waiting.
“I believe that the ones who love us will miss us.”
Truly the perfect answer. Is somebody cutting onions?
Today, Keanu is everywhere, from the recent third installment of his action franchise juggernaut John Wick to a voice role in the beloved Toy Story 4 to the lead character in a hugely popular cyberpunk video game to even a cameo in the Netflix rom-com Always Be My Maybe. Everyone wants a piece of him.
In Hollywood 2019, there’s definitely a divide between the “movie stars” of old and the new-school actors. Namely, most up-and-coming actors have become part of the superhero movie universe, one of the surefire ways to fame in 2019. Lots of “old-school” stars like Leonardo DiCaprio or Al Pacino have stuck mostly to star vehicles, Oscar bait, and moaning about the death of Hollywood as an art form. They’re becoming antiquated.
Keanu? Nope. In addition to leaping into pop culture geekdom as Johnny Silverhand, MCU wizard Kevin Feige just announced that Keanu’s been offered not 1, but 6 different roles in the MCU! And Keanu says he’s game for every single one! While his peers have been reluctant to embrace the Hollywood of this young generation, Keanu has been proven willing to jump in with both feet!
Keanu Reeves is both within and without, a man defined both by who he is and who he is not. A man who’s barely aged and played the same role over and over, yet constantly reinvented himself. A movie star with riches beyond our wildest dreams, but one who still always has time to greet and take a picture with his fans.
A movie star who plays grizzled old badasses on the big screen, and also a nerd who voiced a character in a cyberpunk video game simply because he liked the idea behind it. A man cool beyond words, yet still charmingly befuddled that the entire Internet considers him its boyfriend. Keanu is a man defined by everything, and yet by nothing. He transcends time, culture, and our very expectations of movie stardom and character.
He is truly…breathtaking.
Like all film students, Tej is a huge fan of Tarantino who’s counting down the days until the director’s next movie finally drops. You can follow him on Twitter here.
