A Candid Conversation With Keanu Reeves About Voting, Technology And Paparazzi

A candid conversation about voting, technology and paparazzi overreach with the notoriously reclusive Matrix star

- Michael Fleming

Keanu Reeves is possibly Hollywood’s most elusive megastar, an actor who has managed to remain mysterious on the big screen and even more so in real life. But keeping his fans and critics confused and off-guard has paid off handsomely. Reeves, 41, has packed movie theaters by playing an improbable range of characters in some of the most unforgettable films of the past two decades.

Take, for example, the legendary Bill &Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a movie m“just stupid enough to be endearing,” as one reviewer put it. The role of Ted could easily have pigeonholed Reeves if the actor had not gone on to appear in parts as varied as a Shakespeare-quoting bisexual hustler in My Own Private Idaho (Vincent Canby called Reeves’s performance m“very fine”) and a stoic cop in the highly caffeinated Speed, in which he uttered such lines as m“Harry, there’s enough C-4 on this thing to put a hole in the world!”

Then, of course, there is The Matrix and its sequels, in which Reeves’s kung fu and slow-motion bullet dodging make Bruce Lee seem slothful. The three Matrix movies, released in 1999 and 2003, earned upward of $1.6 billion worldwide. Of sci-fi films, only the Star Wars series has made more. Reeves, who shared in the trilogy’s profits, took home more than $150 million.

Along the way, there were flops—forgettable (and forgotten) movies such as Feeling Minnesota, Chain Reaction and Sweet November—but there were far more hits, from Much Ado About Nothing, River’s Edge and Little Buddha to Something’s Gotta Give and Constantine.