LOL at that quote, from Keanu Reeves’s new profile in Esquire, as part of the promotional push for the highly anticipated The Matrix Resurrections. This happens during the part of the article where it’s mentioned how much he works, how he went from shooting The Matrix to John Wick, and all the training and filming and night shoots and travelling and etc etc in between. Keanu will never, ever, ever complain, dwell on fatigue, talk about how hard it is:
“I mean, ‘hard’? Come on, man. We’re making a movie!”
So instead he tosses off a cheeky line, “Just trying to have a career”. Like he’s new to this. Like he isn’t one of the few remaining superstars, legit superstars, known to everyone, unknowable to most. And that’s still the case after reading the piece. Not that Keanu is a dick about it – he is never a dick about anything. And he’s not purposefully mysterious, either. He’s not reluctant to share, there’s no overt reticence. And it’s more than just being polite about his privacy; this is simply a man who doesn’t do surface conversation. Who’s incapable of inauthenticity. And he’s incapable of revealing anything about himself in this kind of setting. So of course, he’s there to participate in the conversation, most of which, it seems, consists of him going through his phone for a long time trying to find a text message to show the journalist, Ryan D’Agostino, and he’s willing to talk about love and loss and pain, and even River Phoenix, and of course his movies, but to go any deeper with Keanu, you get the sense that it has to happen in exchange, that your depths are equally laid bare…and when you’re in a setting like this, where he, the celebrity, is the one on a pedestal; the rare celebrity who doesn’t want to talk about himself because he doesn’t actually center himself, and not out of a pretence of modesty.
So it’s left to others to tell us about Keanu. And all of them are here to talk about his kindness, how gentle he is, how caring and giving – Carrie Ann Moss, Winona Ryder, Diane Keaton, Martha Plimpton. Sandra’s the one making excerpt headlines today because she explains why they never dated. The more interesting memory of Keanu that she shares though has nothing to do with romance, but friendship.
“A year or so after Speed came out, Bullock and Keanu were hanging out, talking about whatever, and somehow the subject of Champagne and truffles came up, which is not really a subject at all, but Bullock said, offhand, that she had never had Champagne and truffles. A nothing comment. “Really?” Keanu said. “Nope, never had ’em,” Bullock said. The conversation wandered to other topics.
A few days later, Bullock was sitting in the living room of the little house she had bought—her first house—with a girlfriend. They were painting their nails. She heard an engine outside, which turned out to be Keanu’s motorcycle. He rang the doorbell, and Bullock opened the door to find him there with flowers, Champagne, and truffles. He said, “I just thought you might want to try Champagne and truffles, to see what it’s like.” He sat on the couch. Bullock poured some Champagne, and they opened the truffles. Keanu put his hands out, without a word, and Bullock painted his nails black, same as hers.
“He’s a listener,” Sandra Bullock says. “And it drives. People. Crazy.”
He didn’t stay long. He had a date, in fact. He called his date, said he would be there soon, and left.
“That’s what I mean that it drives you crazy,” Bullock says. “When I first met him, I would spend as much time as I could filling a silence, just to feel comfortable. And the more I jibber-jabbered on, the quieter he would get. And I thought, I don’t understand what’s happening! He’s looking at me with eyes of confusion. He’s quiet. Did I say something to offend him? And then a day or two later, he would arrive with a note or a little package, saying, ‘I thought about what you said.’ And he would have his response.”
Bullock, who sometimes speaks in spectacular streaks, is quiet for a moment. Then she says, “How many people do you know like that?”
That’s what I meant, above, when I talked about the mystery of Keanu. He’s not mysterious by choice, by design. As much as he’s mysterious to everyone else, he’s just trying to unravel the mysteries of everything else. This is a curious person. And a curious Keanu has no time for himself – why, when there are so many other stories he’s engaging with and exploring?
Including… Marvel stories?
Esquire also did an on-camera video with Keanu answering fan questions. When asked about being in a Marvel movie, he mentions the multiverse, and that he definitely would love to be a part of it. This is not a secret – that Marvel has been trying to work with Keanu for a long time. Kevin Feige confirmed that they’re always talking to Keanu, every time they’re making a movie. It just hasn’t happened yet.
Keanu is fun here, loose and relaxed and even goofy for the most part, with a couple of exceptions – when River comes up, and also Patrick Swayze. But he can swing from serious and respectful to hilarious, like when Always Be My Maybe comes up and his now iconic performance in that movie.
He’s a treasure. An actual show business treasure.
