Nowadays, most people know that Keanu Reeves is an amazing human being. He’s led a hard life filled with tragedy, but that hasn’t stopped him from being perhaps the most generous man in Hollywood.
Reeves is an incredible actor who has given us many memorable films, but his acts of kindness are truly what make him superhuman. Here are some of the most well-known stories of the gifted actor.
Keanu Doesn’t Want Your Money
Reeves has developed a reputation for being generous, usually going for the artistic integrity of his projects over a huge paycheck. This short summary tells most of the story in a sad way.
And yet the actor continues to be one of the greatest celebrity philanthropists. He goes for the idea of people being “excellent to each other”.
Keanu told Hello! Magazine in 2003: “Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries.”
Though he did appear in six movies that have grossed over $100 million, so that helps.
1. The Devil’s Advocate: Reeves took a big pay cut of a few million dollars so the producers could afford to bring on Al Pacino.
He may have had the fate of the movie itself in mind. No one else could have delivered that climactic monologue other than Pacino.
2. The Replacements: Keanu did the same on The Replacements, which let producers bring in Gene Hackman. Reeves took a 90% pay cut.
3. The Matrix: The real generous side of Keanu was when he made the back-end deal for the two Matrix sequels.
He was paid $10 million up front for the The Matrix and ended up making $35 million in total when the film became a huge success.
But when he was negotiating his profit-sharing deal for the two follow-up films, Reeves chose to share his earnings with the franchise’s special effects and costume design teams.
The total amount was something around $75 million but Reeves chose to share it with the crew instead.
He donated because he thought they deserved it.
A personal account on Reddit also revealed how Reeves helped out a family in need.
“A family friend builds movie sets, doesn’t design, is one of the poor dudes that just builds. Anyway, 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.”
Then there was the story of how Reeves gave the entire stunt team of the Matrix sequels Harley Davidson bikes.
Reeves Is Hard To Kill
Keanu Reeves has suffered a surprising amount of injuries and accidents considering those good looks of his.
An avid motorcycle fan, Reeves has wiped out on numerous occasions. He discussed this on The Graham Norton Show.
He was out on a “demon ride” – riding at night with no headlights – in Topanga Canyon, when he crashed into the side of a mountain.
Reeves was hospitalized for a week with broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. And allegedly, one of the paramedics dropped the stretcher as they were loading him into the ambulance.
Another accident in 1996 caused him to break his ankle, leaving him with a wide, curved scar on his right leg.
One of those accidents left him with veneers on all his teeth. Keanu thinks it’s from his face colliding with the handlebars.
There’s also the incident on the set of “A Walk in the Clouds”.
The night before he was to shoot a love scene, Reeves took a hockey puck to the face, ending up with six stitches. And he still shot the kissing scene the following day.
Keanu Reeves Met A Ghost
Growing up in New Jersey, Reeves shared he had a terrifying encounter with a ghost.
Reeves recalled: “I remember just staring at this suit which had no body or legs in it as it came into the room before disappearing. It was a double-breasted suit in white and I looked at my nanny, who was just as shocked as me. I just couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards.”
When he found out his British Sun interviewer was Scottish, he added “My God, man, [The UK]’s full of ghosts! You gotta walk on the moors at a certain time.”
The actor claims that even as an adult, he’s still traumatized by that vision, and that he still sees the figure in his dreams.
Of course, it could have all been his imagination.
Then he had a second supernatural experience as an adult.
Reeves was out eating lunch with a lady friend in Austin, Texas, when he spun around and noticed a ghost behind him.
There’s no indication of how Keanu knew it was a ghost, instead of some random person from Austin, Texas though.
Keanu Wrestled Alice Cooper
Reeves also grew up in the Yorkville quarter of Toronto. A funky, bohemian type of neighborhood similar to the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco.
His mother used to work with a well-known costume designer who frequently had celebrities visit the house.
According to Keanu’s childhood friend, Evan William, Alice Cooper was a frequent visitor of the Reeves household at the time.
There was an incident in which Cooper challenged the two young men to a rug wrestling match, the perks of having a mom who was a costume designer.
Not one to go easy on kids, Cooper eventually tied them into what Williams referred to as “a human knot,” beating and leaving them helpless in his wake.
Reeves Is Incredibly Well Read
An interview with Details Magazine revealed that Keanu has read all of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.
All 1,500,000 words of about 7 volumes. It’s a work famously known to be about 3,000 pages long.
And while reading Proust, he would read other things in between.
Reeves has been described as “one of the most voracious readers” by Scott Derrickson, director of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
In the interview, they were told to follow Reeves to somewhere he loved and he chose a book store.
He even recited Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30 from memory.
And as casting was going on for Michael Mann’s “Heat”, Keanu turned down the role that was played by Al Pacino so he could star as Hamlet in a stage production that he agreed to do in Canada.
Keanu Reeves Hangs Out With Homeless People
There are over 50,000 homeless people in LA, making homelessness a huge problem.
Some people do give them change, while many ignore them, or treat them like they’re not human.
But not Keanu Reeves.
In September of 1997, Reeves, who by then had millions of dollars, spent one morning with a homeless man, talking, sharing with, and treating him as an equal.
Not recoiling in disgust is one thing, but actually sharing, conversing and spending time sitting down with the less fortunate isn’t something people usually do in the United States.
Most celebrities will travel to do this, or wait for a charity they’re working for when it sponsors an event.
Keanu lives what he believes, not needing any of his famous perks in order to be giving and kind.
His Generosity Has Inspired Even The Most Unexpected Fans To Give
Keanu Reeves inspired 4Chan, a web community who had people commit suicide with their coaxing, and has cyber-bullied countless underaged girls, give money for cancer research.
When the Sad Keanu meme rose to fame in 2010, people thought the actor was sad, and not as full of life as he once had.
Thanks to the original image, or perhaps the tragic details of his life, 4Chan got together, with the internet following suit, deciding that a day in July of 2010 was going to be “Cheer Up Keanu Reeves Day”.
A Facebook group was even created for the event with the following decided by the admins/community:
“On June 15th, we plan on sending letters, emails, gifts, and any other niceties and kind words to a real bro, Keanu Reeves…”
For those who didn’t know, Keanu’s sister Kim was diagnosed with leukemia years ago.
You may consider donating to a cancer research charity in the name of Cheer Up Keanu Day.
Not only does Keanu Reeves do more good than almost any celebrity out there, but he’s actually less high and mighty about his deeds.
That’s what makes him more inspiring than most.
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