Keanu Reeves Wants To Fight

Somehow, after a lifetime of playing iconic badasses—heroic cops, a hacker named Neo, a certain “Eff. Bee. Eye.” agent—Keanu Reeves, at 52, remains one of the most enigmatic figures in Hollywood. But here the always-guarded actor opens up—about his life, his past hits, his latest project (John Wick: Chapter 2), and his eternally youthful physique—while making one thing very clear: He’s still ready to kick lots of ass.

- David Katz

Do you like action movies?” asks Keanu Reeves, unable to contain his excitement, as he leads me on a tour of 87 Eleven Action Design, a cavernous gym, production company, and choreography studio located in an industrial park near LAX that is arguably the white-hot center of modern movie fighting. “It’s like a training school, a dojo for stunts,” he says, clearly pumped to be back at what was his “second home” while he prepped for the cult action movie John Wick (2014) and the next installment, John Wick: Chapter 2, in theaters now. Reeves’ youthful enthusiasm is a little surprising, and not because the guy is officially 52 years old. (In his mod black jacket emblazoned with “Arch”—the motorcycle company he co-founded—he doesn’t look anywhere near that age.) And it isn’t because I expected Reeves to be a jerk, either. The truth is, I had no idea what to expect, because Keanu Reeves—a star for more than a quarter century, a guy whose films have amassed nearly $2 billion at the box office—has achieved something miraculous in today’s celebrity-obsessed world: He’s preserved some mystery about himself.

“I’m not looking for a red carpet to walk, and I’m not trying to have a celebrity footprint,” he says when I mention that it’s rare to see his name flashing across TMZ, and it’s even rarer for him to sit for an extended interview like this one. And while so many actors in Hollywood are focused on building their online “brands,” Reeves seems totally fine with letting the world of social media entirely pass him by. “I can see the appeal—it’s just not to my taste,” he says.