On Keanu Being Eccentric
...for all the fish who claim he's dull and boring.
After one take, [Keanu] gives Diaz a bear hug and pulls her into an impromptu flamenco dance, waving his arms in the air like a goofy shaman; she responds by giving him a playful kick in the ass. A few minutes later, he yells, "Oh, my God!" Several people turn around, startled. He shrugs cheerfully: "It's part of my acting exercise." This particular exercise also includes shouting "Let us perform!" and then answering himself in a Yiddish accent: "Lettuce? You vant lettuce?" "Keanu's a lettuce," says the writer/director, Steven Baigelman, nonsensically, to which Reeves replies, "Iceberg!"
When he's in a good mood, Keanu Reeves is a poster child for the theater of the absurd, reveling in non sequiturs, impromptu impersonations (he does a great Pacino), and the occasional heart-stopping outburst, such as "Bluttuuhhh!" whenever Bram Stoker's Dracula is mentioned. Far from "funny ha-ha," his sense of humor is better described as "funny hummm..." and is at once hilarious and utterly confounding.
– "Finding Neo"
Welcome to a week in Keanu's wacky life. He's Tinseltown's most eccentric celebrity. As most actors spend millions carving out a superstar lifestyle with mansions and cars, Keanu lives a crazy life with one suitcase of belongings – and he doesn't even have a mailing address.
While Reeves recently bought his sister a home outside Los Angeles, he has no desire to settle down himself. "I don't want to concern myself with painting the house or mowing the lawn. Sometimes I miss my couch. I gave my couch to my sister so I can visit it. Before it was in storage so I couldn't even get to it. Sometimes, I'd be clawing at the building, 'Let me in! I just want to see my couch!'
To illustrate his point, Reeves does a typically Keanuesque thing. He jumps up out of his chair and wanders around it agitatedly a couple of times, the memory of the sheer evilness having discombobulated him mildly. He aims odd, inconclusive gestures in Empire's direction in an attempt to communicate the essential, apparently incommunicable darkness of the incident. And then, apparently baffled as to why he is standing up, he sits back down again and smiles. It's eccentric, charming and weirdly sincere: pure Keanu.
– "Highway to Hell"
THE MATRIX star KEANU REEVES is so in love with a battered old pair of boots, he's stick them together with tape rather than toss them away.
The Lebanon-born actor, who's earned a reported $30 million (GBP18.7 million) plus 15 per cent of the box office gross from the Matrix series, has taken to wearing a beloved pair of boots with duct tape around one foot.
Hollywood thinks Reeves is nuts. It's not the usual blather about his being an airhead or a druggie or a closeted gay. It's not even his eccentric lifestyle (he lives out of a suitcase) or rebel recklessness (his ice-hockey unjuries and motorcycle spills are legion). In Hollywood, the standard for judging insanity remains constant: You turn down a good deal, babe, and you are crackers."
– "Keanu: Bad as he wants to be"
Q: Being the New Action Hero could make you really rich.
Keanu: Yes. I'd sit on a mountain of gold and be really unhappy.
Q: What usually happens to you once you've completed a movie?
Keanu: I'm depressed and sit on my couch.
– "14 Quick Questions for Keanu Reeves"
According to recent reports, his behaviour rivals that of Hughes, the billionaire whose eccentricity defied description."
Reeves, a hyperkinetic high school dropout looks like a street person. The eccentric performer pushes his dirty hands through a scruffy beard and matted hair. His clothes are dirty, and he enters making fake belching and flatulent noises.
– "Surprise Hit's Wacky Sequel 'Bill & Ted' in Warp Speed"
While he could be raking in millions of dollars making another Speed-style blockbuster the eccentric actor is treading the boards at the Manitoba Theatre Centre – on a stage actor's basic wage.
– "King Keanu"
With just $25 in his pocket, eccentric star Keanu reeves took to the streets to prepare for his latest film role.
– "Why I'm living with the homeless"
Although Keanu manages to behave while he's working on a film, and rehearses regularly with his band Dogstar, a typical day for the eccentric actor seems closer to the routine of a derelict like Emmanuelle than fellow celebrities. "He wakes up at about 3:00 p.m.," says an insider. "He smokes cigarettes non-stop, and his diet is horrible. He eats caramel corn with milk for breakfast, and fast food like corn dogs from gas station markets. "Sometimes, he'll go for long periods without eating food because he just forgets to eat.
– "Keanu Ends Up on Skid Row!"
But, from the 32-year-old eccentric star's point of view, he has nothing to regret.
One of the first things I remember about him," says Domrose, "is that I thought he was eccentric in a sense that he was drinking a real nice bottle of wine out of a coffee mug. Probably it was a hundred-dollar bottle of wine. It was a Montana State Highway Patrol mug."
– "The Quiet Man"
Some people think Keanu Reeves is a bit stupid. They see the shaggy hair and the stoned, surfer-dude body language; they remember him as the Ted half of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, as the disaffected and druggy young Romeo in River's Edge, as the hyperactive problem boyfriend in Parenthood. He is affable but dumb, they decide, and however you cast him he plays himself.
Everybody who has worked with him tells a different story. They talk about an actor with substance and depth. They testify to his diligence, his sincerity, and his intelligence. They point to the way in which, not just aforementioned roles but also in less obvious parts – such as Martin in Tune in Tomorrow or as Chevalier Danceny in Dangerous Liaisons – he has instilled his characters with a rare sense of urgency and energy, and also with a beautiful, flawed honesty and naivete. They see an extraordinary actor, one who can project feelings onto film in a truly unusual way. They enthuse about somebody who has more than the right cheekbones, a rough'n'ready demeanor, and puppy-dog eyes. He's a bit weird, he's a bit strange, and he's living life by his own agenda, but he has, they agree, a future.
Talented, good-looking... and really, really strange. That's the Keanu Reeves that Jeff Hayward discovered when Smash Hits sent him to chat to this "awesome" dude!
– "Keanu Reeves – One weird dude?!"
Jon Favreau, one of his co-stars in The Replacements, says, "He just loves acting and the life of the maker. But when it came to going out at night, it was very hard to get him to do anything social because he didn't want to have to deal with that. He didn't want to be out in bars, or on the street, and be mobbed.
– "He's rich, handsome, loving"... and alone"
Everyone in the cast really loved Keanu. He`s a moody, strange kid, but a beautiful kid.
– Francis Ford Coppola, "Coppola Finds Keanu Reeves a Strange but Beautiful Kid"
Few things about Reeves are most bogus. He is just being Keanu, which is strange, but true. "I'm weird," he freely admits.
– "Keanu Reeves: A Most Bogus Sex Symbol"
Reeves would be the first one to understand such strange behavior. He has a line on this sort of thinking. Consider this oddity: All of his possessions fit neatly into one scratched-up brown leather suitcase. Keanu Reeves' worldly goods include a couple of pairs of pants, a few T-shirts, socks, underwear and one pair of shoes.
To avoid hassles, he moves his stuff at night. He roams from hotel to hotel, wherever his work or his wishes take him."
– "Keanu Reeves Grows Up -- A Little Bit"
They did, like, two or three months of R&D on the creation of the perfect water drops for them," Reeves says, amused, of the level of detail the Wachowskis demanded for the concurrent production of "Revolutions" and "Reloaded," much of which was filmed on high-tech, effects-facilitating sound stages in Australia. "I love that, I love that you had to have the perfect rain drop."
"And he loved being drenched. And sightless. This strange human.