Keanu Reeves, work and private life

The professional and private life of Keanu Reeves has its ups and downs. Beside some masterpieces, he also made several bad movies. Bad in the sense of direction and script writing, but also in the sense of acting. In private life the man has gone through a lot too. Nevertheless, Keanu has been managing to bring in full houses for almost 25 years now. 

Personal life

Keanu Charles Reeves was born in Beirut, Libanon, on September 2nd, 1964. His father, the Hawaiian Samuel Nowlin Reeves, worked in Beirut as a geologist, and his English mother, Patricia Taylor, was a showgirl.

After Keanu (a Hawaiian family name), a daughter Kim was born in 1966. Soon after, his parents split up. The children travelled through Australia to New York, and ended up with one of their mother's new husbands in Toronto, Canada. The family acquired Canadian nationality. Mother Patricia married four times in total, and during her marriage with Robert Miller, Karina was born. Since Patricia had to make a living (which she did by designing clothes), the children were raised by the grandparents and a professional babysitter. Keanu's father Charles also had a daughter Emma with his second wife. The young Keanu appeared to be very good at ice hockey during high school, and he became a goaltender. His nickname 'The Wall' has its origins in this period.

Keanu Reeves never really worried a lot about becoming rich, and he's really engaged with society.  He always donates generously to charities, and he even has his own charity, devoted to dyslexic patients and the fight against cancer. He played the bass guitar for a while in the band 'Dogstar and Becky'. Owing to pressure of work as an actor, he quitted the band around the turn of the century. He always tries to keep the paparazzi out of his life, but it is known that, beside a sister suffering from leukemia, he had a stillborn child, Ava. Furthermore, his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer, had an accident one year and a half after the death of their daughter. In 2003 Keanu finally decided to buy a house in Los Angeles. A few years before that, he had bought an apartment in New York, Central Park West.

Career

Start

At the age of 17 Keanu left the parental home and quitted school. In this way he wanted to focus completely on moviemaking. During the first years he stayed in Toronto, and he only got some advertising assignements (for Coke, cereal,...) His first movie that gained some fame was Youngblood, starring Rob Lowe.  

In Los Angeles, one of his mother's ex-husbands, the TV and stage director Paul Aaron, introduced him to the manager Erwin Stoff. Stoff became his manager, and he still is. In the course of the years, Keanu turned out to be a workaholic.

One of his first movies, River's Edge, has been well-received, and his first big box-office hit was the hilarious 'Bill & Ted's excellent adventure'. The movie was very popular, and the language used in the movie appeared to have an influence on the youth language in that time. Keanu didn't want to remain linked to Bill & Ted forever, so he took on roles in different kinds of movies. The beautiful costume drama 'Dangerous Liaisons' (with a whole series of young stars) was alternated with the hilarious 'Parenthood', and the strange story of 'Tune in Tomorrow' with 'Peter Falk'. Not all these movies were equally successful, but halfway through the nineties he made the successful movie 'Point Break'. Together with Patrick Swayze (who has passed away by now), he played in this FBI action film about a band of bank-robbing surfers: a well-made movie about the world of surfers.

After this success, he failed pitifully as the English Jonathan Harker in Dracula: a huge list of big names couldn't mitigate Keanu's horrible performance. After this movie, he played in some insignificant movies, until the Dutchman Jan de Bont cast him and Sandra Bullock for 'Speed'. The chemistry between these people played an important role in the success of this action film about a local bus that runs riot. 'Johnny Mnemonic', 'A walk in the Cloud' and 'Chain Reaction' didn't become box-office hits, despite an impressive cast.

Success again

Keanu garnered new success with 'The Devil's Advocate', starring Al Pacino. Keanu reimbursed a part of his salary so Al Pacino would take on the other principal role. In this nail-biting movie from Jonathan Hartford, Pacino (as the devil) and Reeves (a vain lawyer) are really well matched, and the movie has a bombastic end. After a brief quiet period, 'The Matrix' was released. This movie turned out to be extremely successful, and makes Reeves one of the highest-paid Hollywood actors (he made about 200 million dollars out of it).

After the Matrix trilogy, some less successful movies were released. These were alternated, though, with the well-received movies 'The Gift', starring Cate Blanchett, and 'Constantine' (released in 2005 and a big hit, despite a tight budget). The comedy 'Something Gotta Give', released in the same year and starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, didn't turn out to be a bad movie, but it wasn't a box-office hit. The reunification between him and Sandra Bullock in 'The Lake House' is the next failure, but the action film 'Street Kings' (2008) is more successful. It isn't a masterpiece, but the image it gives of police corruption is really lifelike. Furthermore, Keanu plays his role as naïve police officer very well.

'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (2008), a remake, relied too much on its special effects. The theme, global warming, is still a topical subject, but the script and performance of the leading actors weren't good. The characters remained shallow, and the nice pictures formed an artificial whole. A lot of people watched this movie in the cinema, though.

'The Private Lives of Pippa Lee' (2009) played in some smaller cinemas. The movie was made on a tight budget, but it's good quality. Brad Pitt and some others were responsible for this production. 'Henry Crime' is one of the newest movies and hasn't released yet in Europe. This is the first movie Keanu produced himself. The future looks busy for Keanu, with 'Passengers', ' '47 Ronin' and 'Jekyll & Hyde'.

Producing

Since 2009 Reeves has had his own film production company, and several productions are waiting. In his first production 'Henry's Crime', Keanu plays the principal role himself.

Sources: www.todio.nl