I am not the first person to have made this conclusion on Keanu Reeves' acting style. Many critics of the sort who sit around analysing actors have made similar comments about him being a template / blank canvas / minimalist / "a face audiences can project a lot of stuff into" / etc. I am however, to the best of my knowledge, probably the first to use pictures of colourful squiggly things to do it, and for this awesome piece of art, I deserve a cookie.

And see, Keanu says the same thing: "It’s about having strong feelings and very minimalistic, direct behavior to express them. It’s a real economy of acting, when you move it’s like a Japanese samurai, this is my intention and it’s what I do, it’s straight and not flamboyant, it’s clean acting." - Keanu on his work on The Matrix, http://www.whoaisnotme.net/articles/2003_0826_kea.htm

I wrote this prior to knowing about that: http://whoaisnotme.blogspot.com/2008/11/on-keanus-acting-mad-skillz.html, and feel awesome now.

...An interesting trend I've noticed is that some of the highest praise Keanu has received has been from the writers responsible for creating his characters. Generally, with exceptions, they (the Wachowskis, William Gibson, Nancy Meyers, etc) tend to be a lot more enthusiastic about his performance(s) than those who were just the directors or producers alone, and my theory is that because the bulk of the character was already in their head, and Keanu just gave them the template which they easily filled with their preconceived notions and ideas of what that character was. HIS PERFORMANCE WAS ALL IN THEIR HEADS.

This isn't bad acting; a bad actor would have gotten in the way of that, because whatever they would have produced might have been something completely different from what the writers intended, and jarred unpleasantly with those preconceived ideas. Their portrayal would be off, or just wrong in some way, sketchy and unformed, or over the top.

Whereas with Keanu, he just provides a basic, accurate form of the character and then the audience does half the work or more; hence also the simultaneous contradictions of him having one of the most versatile set of roles, while at the same time there are people who claim that he always acts exactly the same. Which makes sense in that there are little differences between the various templates, as you can see in the convenient diagram above. In that way the basic form of his characters (with exceptions; sometimes he does tend more towards conventionally good or bad acting) are similar, but have the potential to go in widely different directions.

And there are a lot of contradicting opinions when it comes to Keanu's performances, many times over the exact same film:

"[Keanu has emerged as a] mature, charismatic movie star... Reeves' face is the movie's locus of kindness and decency - and he stands up to scrutiny. There's not just sweetness there but depth." - San Francisco Chronicle on A Walk in the Clouds

"Keanu Reeves in one of his off roles, sleepwalking dutifullly but seeming to share the audience's bewilderment over how he wound up in this awkward, slow-moving story." - The New York Times on A Walk in the Clouds

"Like for example if you watch Dream to believe, some of his acting in it, in my opinion, is cringeable, like some of the things he says. And then you watch, for instance, Hardball and I think he did really well in it, and The Gift too." - mintxphoenix

"This is the only film that I've ever thought Keanu was any good in. He actually acted in this." - lanna on The Watcher

Razzie nominations - Worst Actor, Keanu Reeves for The Watcher; Worst Actor: Keanu Reeves for Hardball

"He's such a film-to-film kind of actor. Like every time I watch the first Matrix I can't believe how corny he is, yet he can pull off a character like Constantine so well and seemingly so effortlessly. Guess it depends on the direction, idk..." - mrandolph83

"He sucked as John Constantine, he sucked in The Gift, he sucked in The Devil’s Advocate but he showed dramatic weight in The Lake House and was fun in Point Break." - Matt Holmes

"Goddamn that movie sucked so much ass. Man, he was horrible in that. Like more horrible than usual." - Quesazilla on The Lake House

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I continue to find these disparities utterly fascinating. They occur among fans and critics alike. There is no real consensus on which were his good roles and which his bad. It changes drastically from individual to individual, while with the majority of other actors such a consensus generally does exist to some extent.

For me personally the template theory also explains how his characters somehow develop so much more off the screen into decidedly unique individuals, some of whom have very strong and interesting personalities, while when I rewatch (or watch) the film in question, all that character development somehow isn't quite there, not quite fleshed out, and yet at the same time is definitely hinted at. The potential is there, the guidelines are there, they just need to be filled, and how they are filled - and therefore how good the performance is deemed to be - depends on the person watching and what they can bring of themselves to add to that onscreen performance.

...there. i have explained the keanu.

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MORE SOURCES OF PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH ME:

"For the record, I think he often delivers carefully minimalist performances that are actually grounded in an intelligent acting process. I predict he’ll get his due as an actor in late career, much like Clint Eastwood has. But that’s just me." - Matthew Hays, "Peeved Reeves" - The Montreal Mirror (Ca) - http://www.whoaisnotme.net/articles/2005_1027_pee.htm

"Colleen Murphy wrote a workshop play that Reeves and other students performed at Leah Posluns. And she remembers that, when he was focused, he rivetted people's attention. But Murphy admits that she also found Reeves "inarticulate," with a voice just slightly "disconnected" from his body. "I don't know if we're talking a great actor here," she says, "but we're talking a great personality who's very open with his feelings, who has a face audiences can project a lot of stuff into. There's a mystery -- when he doesn't speak too much."" - Lyle Slack, "Keanu's Excellent Adventure" - http://www.whoaisnotme.net/articles/1995_0123_kea.htm

"His natural melancholy, inscrutable nature and minimalist acting style (which his detractors mistakenly construe as a lack of expressiveness) come to the fore in sci-fi and fantasy films." - Didier Péron, "Irresistible" - http://www.whoaisnotme.net/articles/2009_03xx_irr.htm

"Reeves is often described as vacuous - possibly due to his habit of lapsing into Bill and Ted speak during interviews - which is only half true. His singular talent, it is said, is his ability to empty himself (a process which may take him less time than most actors) and allow himself to be filled with the characteristics of a big screen character." - Max Bell, "The Keanu enigma" - http://www.whoaisnotme.net/articles/1996_0716_kea.htm

^ Yes. Except the "singular" and the totally unnecessary words in the parenthesis.

"Reeves seeming drugged or slow, but Van Sant makes use of it to terrifying effect in Idaho. Scott is an empty canvas, a surface on which he imposes different identities at whim. Scott can be a debauched street hustler or the privileged son of the mayor and a pillar of society, but it isn’t because of a multiplicity of self and contradictory depth within him. Scott is all surface, glib posture, and performance with a horrible, empty, even inhuman void just beneath. Scott is whatever he pleases to play today, and no more. In contrast with Mike’s vulnerability and desperation of emotion, Scott is incapable of real connection, nor does he seek it. Scott is perpetual performance embodied." - Marianna Martin, "Mythic River" - http://www.whoaisnotme.net/articles/2007_xxxx_myt.htm

... but I must confess I don't really understand the diagram.
in my defense, I'm even more sleep deprived than usual.

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... but I must confess I don't really understand the diagram.

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:( Which part of it? Or the whole thing?

well, I had old-fashioned teachers at the uni ; they believed in words, not diagrams. the only ones I could get a grasp on were the pie chart and the bar chart. almost flunked my statistics exams. a friend got me through it. ( she's a professor of statistics and macro economy now )

so... would you mind sending me an email ? 'the diagram explained' sort of thing?
;) :D

thanks.