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Although gifted with a Hawaiian first name that loosely&nbsp;translates to “cool wind over the mountain”, life has been&nbsp;far from a breeze for Reeves, who turns 55 this September.&nbsp;His English showgirl-turned-costume-designer mother&nbsp;split from his Asian-American geologist father when he&nbsp;was just three years old, with Reeves Senior permanently exiting the picture 10 years later. At the age of 17, following&nbsp;a nomadic childhood and an early adolescence that saw him&nbsp;live as far afield as Sydney, New York and Toronto, he headed&nbsp;off to Hollywood with very little to lose. By then, much to the&nbsp;disappointment of the maternal grandparents who had largely&nbsp;brought him up, he had already been expelled from high school.&nbsp;To this day, he is yet to officially finish school.
Despite working on his thespianic&nbsp;credentials since the age of nine, having appeared&nbsp;in countless theatrical productions, he didn’t, however,&nbsp;register on the Hollywood star Richter scale&nbsp;until 1989, when he played the eponymous Ted&nbsp;in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a time travel&nbsp;comedy that remains a cult favourite and which,&nbsp;in 1991, gave rise to its own, equally lauded&nbsp;sequel, Bill and&nbsp;Ted’s Bogus Journey.&nbsp;
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46968" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-3.jpg" alt="keanu reeves" width="466" height="700" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-3.jpg 466w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-3-200x300.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-3-186x280.jpg 186w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-3-120x180.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-3-400x601.jpg 400w" sizes="(max-width: 466px) 100vw, 466px" />
It was while riding high as MTV’s 1993 Most&nbsp;Desirable Man that tragedy once again crossed his path,&nbsp;with his close pal and former co-star River Phoenix dying of&nbsp;an overdose at just 23. Clearly still feeling the shock waves&nbsp;more than 20 years later, Reeves told one interviewer in&nbsp;2014: “River was a remarkable human being and actor. We&nbsp;got along very well and I miss him. I think of him often.”
To many, it seemed that Reeves threw himself into a&nbsp;series of even bigger projects in the wake of the tragedy,&nbsp;landing his most high-profile role to date in 1994’s&nbsp;action-drama Speed, however, just three year later he surprised the studio he turned down the role for the films sequel&nbsp;Speed 2. This, though, would come to be seen as a signature&nbsp;move by Reeves, as he has, since then, frequently ducked&nbsp;big-buck offers in favour of playing roles he coveted or&nbsp;working with actors he admired – notably Al Pacino in The&nbsp;Devil’s Advocate and Gene Hackman in The Replacements.&nbsp;It also led to him to negotiate a highly-unusual profit sharing&nbsp;deal for The Matrix and its sequels, which saw&nbsp;him take a pay cut to ensure the franchise’s special&nbsp;effects and costume designs remained cutting-edge, and&nbsp;later donating US$75 million to be shared between the&nbsp;production team as a sign of his appreciation.
<figure id="attachment_46970" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-46970" style="width: 700px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-46970 size-full" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5.jpg" alt="keanu reeves" width="700" height="466" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5.jpg 700w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5-200x133.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5-421x280.jpg 421w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5-400x266.jpg 400w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves5-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-46970" class="wp-caption-text">A young Keanu Reeves in Bill &amp; Ted&#8217;s Excellent Adventure</figcaption></figure>
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While riding high on the acclaim occasioned by the&nbsp;first Matrix film, fate dealt Reeves another bitter blow&nbsp;when the daughter he was to have with Jennifer Syme, his&nbsp;production assistant girlfriend, was delivered stillborn.&nbsp;Not surprisingly, the subsequent grief put a huge strain on&nbsp;the couple’s relationship, which ultimately ended in Syme’s&nbsp;death two years later in a calamitous car accident. With&nbsp;blow piling on blow, that same year – 2001 – saw his half sister&nbsp;Kim diagnosed with leukemia, a condition that would&nbsp;take the best part of 10 years to overcome.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-46966" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves_2.jpg" alt="keanu reeves" width="466" height="700" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves_2.jpg 466w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves_2-200x300.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves_2-186x280.jpg 186w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves_2-120x180.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves_2-400x601.jpg 400w" sizes="(max-width: 466px) 100vw, 466px" />
Perhaps reflecting his own turmoil, the next decade&nbsp;saw Reeves increasingly drawn to playing complex, troubled men. In 2005, he took the title role in Constantine, an occult detective&nbsp;film based on DC Comics’ Hellblazer comic book series, while 2008&nbsp;saw him memorably play an alien messenger in a remake of The Day&nbsp;the Earth Stood Still, a ’50s cult favourite. Reeves’ most ubiquitous&nbsp;role in the opening decade of the 21st century, however, was arguably&nbsp;Sad Keanu, a paparazzi-snapped meme that caught the then-middle aged&nbsp;actor alone and forlorn on a park bench, with just a half-eaten&nbsp;sandwich for company.
Then came 2013, the year Reeves took on the title role in John&nbsp;Wick, the film that arguably resurrected his career and saw him once&nbsp;again embrace the action hero mantle he had once so memorably&nbsp;discarded. Bringing the reluctantly unretired assassin to the big screen&nbsp;proved a natural fit with the actor’s innate stoicism and fondness for&nbsp;wry humour, with the casting proving to be box office gold.
<figure id="attachment_46969" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-46969" style="width: 700px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-46969" src="//www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="466" srcset="https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves.jpg 700w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-200x133.jpg 200w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-421x280.jpg 421w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-120x80.jpg 120w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-500x333.jpg 500w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-400x266.jpg 400w, https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/keanu-reeves-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-46969" class="wp-caption-text">Keanu Reeves as iconic Matrix character Neo</figcaption></figure>
In addition to his natural affinity for characters with a dark side,&nbsp;many have speculated that Reeves’ own personal tragedies gifted his&nbsp;depiction of Wick with unusual depth. Seemingly confirming this in&nbsp;a 2006 interview, he said: “Grief changes shape, but it never ends.&nbsp;People have a misconception that you can deal with it and, one day,&nbsp;say: ‘It’s gone, and I’m better’. They’re wrong. When the people you&nbsp;love are gone, you really are alone.”&nbsp;As to whether his renewed success has lightened his load at all,&nbsp;that will have to remain a matter of conjecture. He has, however,&nbsp;green-lit a return to two of his greatest hits, with Bill and Ted 3&nbsp;(apparently called Bill and Ted Go to Hell) already in production and&nbsp;rumours growing of a return of The Matrix sometime soon. And Speed&nbsp;3? Well, even for the rejuvenated Keanu Reeves, it’s safe to assume that&nbsp;some things are just beyond redemption…

Text: <a href="mailto:bailey@itotamedia.com">Bailey Atkinson</a> 
Photos: AFP
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John Wikipedia: Keanu Reeves, the man behind the reluctant assassin…