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June 2010
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I Have New Found Respect For Keanu Reeves

Yes, I was one of those people that liked to make fun of Keanu’s bad acting skills and wondered how he always got such big movie roles. Well, turns out he’s a pretty decent guy….well more than decent….he sounds awesome according to this reddit thread where people are sharing stories about him.

Back in the late 90s and fresh out of college I got my first job as an assistant prop designer on the set of Chain Reaction (Keanu was a supporting actor with Morgan Freeman). EVERY DAY for the last few weeks of filming, Keanu treated the stage hands and “grunt workers” (including myself) by taking us out for free breakfast and lunch. He was genuinely a very nice guy to work with.
Since then, I’ve worked on about 30 different sets and have never met an actor as generous and friendly as him. Most actors I’ve seen and worked with are total douches who always think they are better than us. Keanu on the other hand, at the very least, was socially approachable and definitely kindhearted.
That was one example (that involved me directly), but (on the same set), I remember him going out of his way to give my friend a ride to the repair shop to pick up his car… I’ll write more as I remember, but its been a while.

A family friend builds movie sets, doesn’t design, is one of the poor dudes that just builds. Anyways he worked on the set for the Matrix and Keanu heard about family trouble he was having and gave him a $20,000 Christmas bonus to help him out. He also was one of the only people on the set that genuinely wanted to know peoples names, would say hello and mean it, and would talk to people as they were his peers and not below him just because they were practically making nothing to build a set. I’ve never heard anyone say Keanu is douche, seems like the nicest person in Hollywood from a second hand experience.

A friend of mine told me that she was once stranded on the side of a highway outside LA when her jalopy broke down. She had no cell phone (that was before most people had cell phones) and no way to call for help. Then a nice black porsche pulls over and as you can guess, it was Keanu. He tried to help her jump start the car and when it didn’t work, he called AAA for her. When they towed her car, he offered her to drive her home, which she accepted. He drove about 50 miles out of his destination just to drive her home. She told me she hoped he would hit on her but he didn’t, he was just a gentleman, dropped her at her house, gave her his phone number and told her to call him if she needed further help.

I had a few friends working special effects jobs on the Matrix movies, he bought all of them fucking HARLEYS for Christmas during the shoot for the second one.
One of those guys, Paul, said that Keanu was the most sincere, humble and lovely dude he’d ever met. Said he eschewed contact with the cast in favour of hanging out with the crew, was the only guy the martial arts coaches respected out of the whole cast, and was the bravest man he’s ever met. That scene in the first Matrix film, the assault on the office tower lobby – Keanu turned down earplugs for all the charges blowing everywhere taking “bullet holes” out of pillars, walls etc, just for authenticity. When he turns and hides behind a pillar which explodes with bullets hitting it on both sides, Paul said “the entire crew was about 15 metres away, with ear protection, and all flinching anyway when the charges blew – Keanu just took it like a complete badass”.
EDIT: I remembered, Paul also told me that Keanu once explained to him why he was getting so many action roles. He had injured himself at some point and had fused vertebrae in his upper back or neck, so when he turned his head, his shoulders and chest tended to follow, because of his limited flexibility. “It makes me look dynamic, rather than disabled” was his explanation.

i love reading stories of famous people actually being down to earth and nice!

Comments

Comment from che
Posted: June 9, 2010 at 12:42 pm

haha! keanu was my first real celebrity crush… back in the ‘point break’ and ‘speed’ era. so ill always have a spot in my heart for him LOL. he gets a bad wrap for his ‘bill and ted’ days and awkward moves… but i hear he’s a sweetheart with his mom and sister, and loves shakespeare. not that any of that really matters lol… and his bday is sept 2 so he’s a virgo like us :P (as you might be able to tell, i know WAY too much about keanu than is normal… don’t get me started haha)

but another cool celeb is tom hanks. i heard he gives fat tips at restaurants!