Keanu A-Z News Reports
Monday, January 18, 1999
Golden Raspberries Razz Demi
[E! Online 10/02/1997] snippet
The, um, winners will be announced on March 23, a day before the Academy Awards are presented.
Here are all the nominees for the 17th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards:
Worst Actor:
Tom Arnold, Big Bully, Carpool and The Stupids;
Keanu Reeves, Chain Reaction;
Adam Sandler, Bulletproof and Happy Gilmore;
Pauly Shore, Bio-Dome;
Sylvester Stallone, Daylight
Friday, January 01, 1999
"Trainspotting," Best Investment
[E! Online 10/02/1997] snippet
Test your box-office intelligence quotient. What was the most successful film of 1996 from a business point of view? Independence Day which grossed $785 million worldwide or Trainspotting which earned just $72 million? Remember, in the movie business, bigger is not always better.
With their capacity for huge worldwide returns, several big-budget movies always are included in the top 20, while their huge costs send some to the bottom of the list. Most wind up around the middle, with generally around a 3-to-1 return. And once foreign grosses are factored in, films perceived as duds in the U.S., such as the Keanu Reeves thriller Chain Reaction, come out okay.
Cunanan Didn't Have AIDS, Newspaper Reports
[E! Online 01/08/1997] snippet
In other Cunanan news today (the story just won't go away): producer Dino De Laurentis (King Kong) wants Keanu Reeves or Brad Pitt to play the alleged killer in a movie based on the notorious man's life, according to the New York Post.
The newspaper reports that De Laurentis had been tracking the Cunanan story even before the Versace slaying and had sent an early proposal to Reeves, who turned it down. (A spokesman for Reeves today said he was "unaware of any proposal." Pitt's people say they haven't seen a thing on the project.)
In the wake of Cunanan's mega-notoriety, the veteran movie producer is reportedly updating the script and getting ready to send it off to Reeves again. Pitt, too.
This reputed project is not be confused with yet another Hollywood-ization of the suspected killer's life. ABC confirmed this week that it's developing its own Cunanan docudrama.
Reeves set to play with Devil
[Calgary Sun July 8, 1996]
It wasn't just a chance to jam with his band Dogstar that prompted Keanu Reeves to pass on an $11.5-million payday to star opposite Sandra Bullock in Speed 2.
Reeves is poised to accept the same $11.5-million to star in The Devil's Advocate.
Reeves will play the right-hand man to Lucifer, who has taken up human form as a powerful lawyer. Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Michael Douglas and Jack Nicholson have all been approached at one time to play the devil.
Reeves has a doubleheader still planned for this summer. This month will be the action drama Chain Reaction, starring Morgan Freeman and directed by The Fugitive's Andrew Davis.
Next month, Reeves stars in Feeling Minnesota as a man who runs off with his brother's fiancee.
Keanu Reeves gets serious, dude!
[Calgary Sun July 30, 1996]
BEVERLY HILLS -- Even a cool breeze can occasionally become a raging storm.
In Hawaiian, Keanu Reeves' first name means "cool breeze over the mountains."
For most of his 31 years -- and particularly his 10 years in Hollywood -- Reeves has been a cool wind, or at least one cool dude.
Through movies like Parenthood, I Love You To Death, Prince Of Pennsylvania and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Reeves perpetuated the image of the spaced-out Valley boy.
Even in this first half of his film career, there were the stormy periods.
There was his motorcycle accident in L.A.'s Topanga Canyon, which ruptured his spleen and left an ugly snaking scar on his belly.
There were his bouts with alcohol and drugs and his surly interview sessions at which he reveled in being uncouth and dishevelled.
After the death of his friend River Phoenix in 1993, Reeves suddenly became solemn and revamped his image. He joined a small alternative rock band called Dogstar, in which he plays bass.
With the 1994 release of the action thriller Speed, Reeves became a box-office superstar.
This form of celebrity was something he had never pursued -- and he continues to rage against it.
"All I have ever wanted is to be accepted as a serious actor or a serious musician or a serious something.
"Instead, there is this frenzy for autographs and pictures. It has nothing to do with my ability to act, and for that reason it's demeaning," says Reeves.
"I've been with the band for three-and-a-half years, and in that time, we have never got a real review.
"It's all about what I'm wearing. It can be very demoralizing for the other (band) members."
Reeves is now on the road with Dogstar in Japan. It's the second leg of a tour which saw the band do 12 European gigs in 10 days.
"It's even nuttier in Japan than in America," he says.
In Japan, Reeves' rabid fans number in the tens of thousands. They take turns forming groups and flying to wherever his band is playing or where they might glimpse him in person.
When Reeves starred in Hamlet last year in Winnipeg, a group of 50 Japanese women bought theatre seats for every night of the run.
These fans call him their love god.
"Dogstar is releasing its first CD in September. Maybe then we'll get some of the respect we're after."
Reeves is also looking for respect from the world film community. That, he says, is the reason he turned down a $11.5-million US payday for Speed 2.
"I just finished doing Chain Reaction. It was a big action picture and I didn't want to go through that again."
In Chain Reaction -- which opens Friday -- Reeves plays a lab technician accused of sabotaging a government-run plant. He becomes a fugitive not knowing exactly who is pursuing him and why.
Morgan Freeman co-stars, with Andrew (The Fugitive) Davis directing.
"It wasn't a great experience," admits Reeves. "We were making this expensive summer movie and we had these 10 writers on the set every day making it up as we went along."
Reeves also says that Davis "loves to work in chaos. He says it inspires him. But I found it nuts, especially since we were forced to work such insane hours."
Instead of Speed 2, Reeves will star in The Devil's Advocate. He plays the assistant to a lawyer who is really Lucifer.
"I thought they were talking to Al Pacino about playing the devil, but I also hear Dustin Hoffman might be doing it."
Reeves is still limping these days from a second motorcycle accident he had in May. He was driving down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles when a car pulled away from the curb.
Reeves swerved and struck another vehicle.
"My two Norton motorcycles are my prized possessions. I could never think of not riding them again. I don't know if I'm getting better at riding them but I definitely know I'm getting better at crashing."
Jokingly, Reeves says his work on Speed and Chain Reaction may have helped save his life.
"Chain Reaction taught me how to fall and bounce.
"Speed gave me the agility to get up and hobble away before somebody could run over me.
"Neither of them prepared me for dodging cars."
Reeves says the worst thing about doing action movies like Speed and Chain Reaction "is when something goes wrong in the stunt. The best thing is when everything goes right. I mean it's all about the stunts isn't it? It's not about acting."
The sum of his parts
[Toronto Sun 08/09/1996]
Multi-faceted Keanu Reeves knows that critics just don't know what to make of him
HOLLYWOOD -- Alas, poor Keanu Reeves, everybody thinks they know him well.
"Ah, I don't know about that," says Reeves beautifully baffled at the suggestion. "I, uh, really think that, uh,uh, gawd -- black out."
This is not a serious medical crisis. This happens to be Reeves' way of saying he has lost his chugging train of thought.
What he might've added, if he felt so inclined, is that the real difficulty in getting to know Keanu Reeves is that there are so many versions.
There is the neatly dressed, well-scrubbed, polite Keanu. There is the cranky T-shirt-and-jeans wearing, road-weary biker, and there is the ponderous, soul-searching surfer poet, not to mention the scruffy, unshaven Big Star actor trying to escape his innate prettyboyness.
In this particular case, the Keanu Reeves trying to re-direct his stream of consciousness is actually a hybrid of unshaven Big Star and ponderous surfer poet.
To understand and appreciate the concept, you accept that he is not so much a series of contradictions as he is an amalgamation of his variations.
That's why Reeves' gypsy hotelroom service lifestyle and erratic mini-maxi career suits him perfectly.
That's also why he's struggling at this second -- his ponderous poet is wrestling with his road- weary biker and there is no clear winner.
Finally, Reeves decides to do what he usually decides to do -- not get too revealing about what everybody knows and what everybody thinks they know.
Denial or avoidance or whatever, Reeves is very excellent at dodging comments on `what everybody knows.' This is gossip code for his sex preference, his sudden social lapses, his tendency to disappear, his potential as an escapist.
Reeves, so far, continues to be mute on sex preference, lapses, disappearing, escapism. But he doesn't stumble or mumble when he offers this assertion as a black out compromise.
"I do know that I am the critics' whipping boy," Reeves says. The 32 year old is not feeling sorry for himself. He is being realistic and objective. He also has a rationalization.
"I think that when I went from River's Edge to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, I stunned some people, then I kinda stunk in Dracula, and that was a drag. And then Speed, and after that they didn't know what to think of me."
Whether critics love or hate him in his latest film, Feeling Minnesota (opening Friday), is not a factor.
Reeves just plain likes the theme "of how these people are looking for love and trying to get away from their past."
In the Steven Baigelman picture, Reeves plays an ex-con who falls for his brother's (Vincent D'Onofrio) harlot wife (Cameron Diaz). The story depicts the seedy and quirky side of life, but Reeves liked it enough, and had enough power after Speed hit big, to get it made.
"The script had been around a little bit," says Reeves of Baigelman's screenplay, "and when it was brought to my attention I liked it."
The small-budget picture -- ironically put together by former Toronto residents Baigelman and Reeves -- is in sharp contrast to Reeves' huge studio actioner Chain Reaction, which was released last month.
Reeves nods yes. "Before I acted in Speed, I was doing small independent movies, y'know.
"But working with a studio is great; the scope is grander. My feeling about Hollywood is that it is not generally concerned with specifics of emotions and relationships."
It is concerned about money, and Reeves, better than most, comprehends the amounts. He turned down millions to appear in Speed 2, but that wasn't an anti-studio statement.
"That was hard, career wise and money wise,"
he admits. "And I know Speed brought me attention and opportunities to act in different pictures, and now I'm throwing caution to the wind to see what happens."
But wait. Wasn't Chain Reaction a stab at starring in a huge summer action movie -- again?
"When I was making it," says Reeves warming to the subject, "I didn't think it was a big action picture, and I thought it was going to be released in the fall, not the summer.
"It went in the direction I wasn't expecting. I thought it was going to be dram-action, more drama than action.
"Feeling Minnesota has a formula, in that it has a chase in it, but this one differentiates itself from the others."
Reeves is hoping for a little difference in his next project, Taylor Hackford's Devil's Advocate.
"It's a moral allegory," says Reeves proudly.
So is Reeves the devil or the advocate?
"I play a lawyer," he says grinning, "so I'm both."
But of course.
Don't talk to strangers
[Calgary Sun 13/09/1996]
BEVERLY HILLS -- Keanu Reeves is feeling a bit surreal.
Once again he's being asked to talk about his least favorite subject.
"It's so unnatural to spend an entire day talking about myself to strangers. I always feel so surreal when I have to do it," admits Reeves.
"I still can't believe people want to know things about me and I really don't believe I have anything worth talking about."
Reeves has agreed to speak to journalists to promote Feeling Minnesota, an independent movie that opens in Calgary today.
He plays a drifter who returns to his old neighborhood for the wedding of his brother (Vincent D'Onofrio) only to run away with his brother's new wife (Cameron Diaz).
Reeves makes $11 million a picture, yet the entire budget for Feeling Minnesota was less than $8 million.
"Danny DeVito sent me the script. He was producing it as a low-budget independent movie through his own Jersey Films," says Reeves.
"I read the script and found it intriguing. It's how I reacted to A Walk In The Clouds. They're the kind of character-driven films I want to do."
Big-budget action films like Speed and Chain Reaction allow Reeves the opportunity to star in these smaller films.
Feeling Minnesota was written and directed by Steven Baigelman, a 34-year-old first-time film-maker.
"Keanu verbally committed to the project a couple of days before Speed opened," Baigelman says. "When that movie went through the roof, we were certain we'd lost him but he's a man of his word."
Baigelman, who like Reeves hails from Ontario, says his star "only really gets excited about talking when the conversation shifts to hockey or music."
Explains Reeves: "I wanted to be a hockey player long before I ever thought of being an actor. I was pretty shy as a child. I didn't feel confident unless I was on the ice.
"Because I had trouble reading (he has dyslexia), I wasn't a good student. I didn't finish high school. I did a lot of pretending as a child. It was my way of coping.
"When I was 15, I started doing some acting and I got hooked because it was like hockey in that it allowed me to be somebody different."
Reeves' rock band Dogstar released its debut CD this month.
"Our first legitimate gig was opening for Bon Jovi. It was the kind of rush I'd always dreamed it would be," says Reeves.
Reeves insists "acting and music are really fickle careers. Five years from now, I don't expect to have the profile in either career that I'm enjoying today."
Keanu Reeves to wed?
[Canoe.ca 09/12/1996]
HOLLYWOOD -- Keanu Reeves is caught in the wedding bell rumor mill again.
The New York Daily News reports that the Canadian star is engaged to actress/party girl Amanda de Cadenet.
"For those who are not familiar with de Cadenet, let us jog your memories," writes the respected Internet's Mr. Showbiz. "She was the one who attended the 1995 Academy Awards with Courtney Love (they wore the same dress): she's currently divorcing Duran Duran's John Taylor; and she's attempting to start her much-hyped but as-yet-nonexistent film career with the upcoming release Fall."
This is the second time Reeves has been the subject of marriage gossip. Previously, it was wrongly reported that the star of Speed had married David Geffen. The two had never met but Geffen did have a personal assistant that looked similar to Reeves.
Reeves' camp would not comment. He is filming Devil's Advocate with Al Pacino.
Keanu -- where are you?
[Calgary Sun 19/06/1997]
Speed 2 Cruise Control barrelled into theatres last weekend without Keanu Reeves.
Reeves and Sandra Bullock starred together in the original Speed but he has been replaced in the sequel by Jason Patric.
Rumors abounded that Reeves just wasn't up to speed for the sequel -- that he had gained too much weight and couldn't chisel off the pounds in time.
"Keanu doesn't have a weight problem. It's a personality, insecurity thing," insists Jan De Bont, the director of both Speed movies.
"Speed put Keanu under incredible media scrutiny and that was something he just didn't know how to handle. He's a very shy, private person and suddenly there were all these stories about him."
The stories ranged from drug use to homosexuality.
"Keanu could see that Speed 2 was going to be one of the biggest movies of this summer and he wasn't prepared to go through another round of media scrutiny. He also feared being thought of being typecast as an action hero. Speed led to Chain Reaction, another action movie that Keanu had to carry.
"He had a bad experience making that movie. It was at that time he sent me a letter through his agent saying he wanted out of Speed 2."
De Bont recalls he flew to Chicago where Reeves was completing Chain Reaction to try to allay his fears and apprehensions.
"It was then he confessed to me he didn't want to carry a big movie. He wanted to do a few small pictures and maybe a supporting role in a bigger movie."
Reeves did both.
He took a cameo in the $2-million independent drama The Last Time I Committed Suicide and a supporting role opposite Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, for which he will be paid $11 million.
De Bont says he hopes Reeves scrutinized the scripts for both his new projects.
"It's important to put Keanu in the right movie, otherwise he just can't do it.
"Keanu is the kind of actor who waits for the director to tell him what to do. He rarely initiates ideas on his own, so he needs a really strong director."
Bullock had originally insisted she would not do Speed 2 without Keanu.
"By the time Keanu told us he wouldn't do the sequel, the studio and Jan had already put a great deal of time, money and effort into the project. It would have been irresponsible of me to back out," explains Bullock.
"I owe my current celebrity to Jan. I wouldn't have the kind of clout I do in Hollywood today if it weren't for Jan taking a chance on me for Speed.
"I was Jan's first choice but the studio didn't want me. They had talked to a lot of high-profile actresses who'd all turned the project down."
Crazy like a fox
[Calgary Sun 12/10/1997]
NEW YORK -- For a spaced out dude, Keanu Reeves certainly had a major case of the smarts last summer.
It seems Reeves was the only one who could tell a bogus journey from an excellent adventure.
Reeves sent shock waves through Hollywood when he passed on an $11-million payday for Speed 2, packed his guitar and went on tour with his band Dogstar instead.
Reeves left his managers to negotiate an $8-million deal for him to star opposite Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate.
"Unless you're The Love Boat, films set under water or above water or those that touch down momentarily on water are fine, but movies that are set on water are the kiss of death," explains Reeves about his decision to pass on Speed 2: Cruise Control.
Reeves was replaced by Jason Patric, and the movie ended up as one of the summer's biggest box-office disasters.
"The version I read had this cruise liner speeding toward a resort town. It sounded pretty ridiculous. I mean, just how fast can an ocean liner go? It hardly qualifies for Speed."
Reeves doesn't consider choosing a gig with his band over starring in a major action movie a radical decision. The 32-year-old actor was almost weaned on music. When he was a child in Toronto, his paternal Hawaiian grandmother had a recording studio in her home.
Reeves would sit in the studio listening to musicians the likes of Alice Cooper cut tracks for their albums.
"Music and hockey were in my blood long before acting," explains Reeves.
According to Reeves, performing live on stage, whether it's with Dogstar or as the moody Dane in the Manitoba Theatre production of Hamlet, gives him a rush movies have failed to.
"You're so close to your audience. You have the sense they're scrutinizing your eyebrows. That exhilarates you. It makes you give everything you have in you.
"On our tour this summer, we played in venues where Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had played. You could feel their ghosts. I've never gotten that on a movie set."
The closest a movie ever brings Reeves to his stage rushes is when he gets to do his own stunts.
"I've always been a bit reckless. The more physical acting gets, the more comfortable I feel. I love the danger in doing stunts and physical stuff in films."
And in real life too.
Reeves has the scars on his stomach, forehead and hip from his series of motorcycle accidents.
"When they're taking you to the hospital, you sort of think you'll never get back on the bike, but that feeling passes quickly."
Reeves' motorcycles and cars are his only real possessions. He has yet to buy a house or apartment, preferring instead to call hotels his home of choice.
In The Devil's Advocate, Reeves plays a young southern lawyer who is courted by a powerful New York law firm. Reeves trades his soul for fame and power. Pacino is the head of the firm who negotiates this devil of a deal.
Reeves was cast first in The Devil's Advocate.
"When I heard that Al Pacino was going to play the Devil, I got light-headed and my blood tingled. Like any other movie-goer, I've been blown away by his performances and here I was going to act with him."
Reeves says Pacino proved to be "a beautiful, gracious man. It's astonishing how he's able to express himself for a camera."
According to Charlize Theron, nudity doesn't intimidate Reeves, as she discovered while filming their intense sex scene in The Devil's Advocate.
"Keanu is so comfortable with his body that you don't feel uncomfortable being naked with him.
"At one point, Keanu told me to pull his pants down. It wasn't in the script, but they kept his butt shot in the movie."
Reeves says he wishes now he'd asked for a double.
"It's not a pretty sight. In fact it's probably the scariest moment in the movie," he jokes.
Reeves is set to begin four months of intensive martial arts training for his next film, a big-budget science-fiction thriller called Matrix.
Beyond Matrix, Reeves has no idea what he's doing, though he would like another crack at Shakespeare.
"I've been talking to (Werner) Hertzog. He says he wants to direct me in a film version of Macbeth. I think I might be ready in about five years. It'll probably take him that long to get the financing."
Keanu proves he's Devilish
[Express 14/10/1997]
Questioned for passing on Speed 2, Keanu Reeves gets the last laugh
NEW YORK -- For a spaced-out dude, Keanu Reeves certainly had a major case of the smarts last summer.
It seems Reeves was the only one who could tell a bogus journey from an excellent adventure.
Reeves sent shock waves through Hollywood when he passed on an $11-million payday for Speed 2, packed his guitar and went on tour with his band Dogstar instead.
Reeves left his managers to negotiate an $8-million deal for him to star opposite Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, which opens this Friday in Edmonton.
"Unless you're The Love Boat, films set under water or above water or those that touch down momentarily on water are fine, but movies that are set on water are the kiss of death," explains Reeves about his decision to pass on Speed 2: Cruise Control.
Reeves was replaced by Jason Patric and the movie ended up as one of the summer's biggest box-office disasters.
"The version I read had this cruise liner speeding toward a resort town. It sounded pretty ridiculous. I mean, just how fast can an ocean liner go? It hardly qualifies for Speed."
Reeves doesn't consider choosing a gig with his band over starring in a major action movie a radical decision. The 32-year-old actor was almost weaned on music.
When he was a child in Toronto, his Hawaiian paternal grandmother had a small recording studio in her home.
Reeves would sit in the studio, listening to musicians like Alice Cooper cut tracks for their albums.
"Music and hockey were in my blood long before acting," explains Reeves, whose stepfather, Paul Aaron, is a theatre director whom credits with sparking his interest in acting.
According to Reeves, performing live on stage, whether it's with Dogstar or as the moody Dane in the Manitoba Theatre production of Hamlet, gives him a rush movies have failed to.
"You're so close to your audience. You have the sense they're scrutinizing your eyebrows. That exhilarates you. It makes you give everything you have in you.
"On our tour this summer, we played in venues where Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had played. You could feel their ghosts. I've never gotten that on a movie set."
The closest a movie ever brings Reeves to his stage rushes is when he gets to do his own stunts.
"I've always been a bit reckless. The more physical acting gets, the more comfortable I feel. I love the danger in doing stunts and physical stuff in films."
And in real life too.
Reeves has the scars on his stomach, forehead and hip from his series of motorcycle accidents.
"When they're taking you to the hospital, you sort of think you'll never get back on the bike but that feeling passes quickly."
Reeves's motorcycles and cars are his only real possessions. He has yet to buy a house or apartment, preferring instead to call hotels his home of choice.
In The Devil's Advocate, Reeves plays a young Southern lawyer who is courted by a powerful New York law firm.
In what is essentially a Faustian tale, Reeves trades his soul for fame and power. Pacino is the head of the firm who negotiates this devil of a deal.
Reeves was cast first in The Devil's Advocate.
"When I heard that Al Pacino was going to play the devil, I got lightheaded and blood tingled. Like any other movie-goer, I've been blown away by his performances and here I was going to act with him."
Reeves says Pacino proved to be "a beautiful, gracious man. It's astonishing how he's able to express himself for a camera. He becomes so free. He's never intimidated by anything and he never stops trying to make a scene better."
According to Charlize Theron, nudity doesn't intimidate Reeves, as she discovered while filming their intense sex scene in The Devil's Advocate.
"Keanu is so comfortable with his body that you don't feel uncomfortable being naked with him.
"If took us two full days to shoot our sex scene and Keanu kept us all laughing."
Though the script and direction did not call for Reeves to be fully nude, Theron suspects "he'd have had no problems stripping down. I've done nude scenes with other actors who were so nervous, they made all of us uncomfortable. At one point, Keanu told me to pull his pants down. It wasn't in the script but they kept his butt shot in the movie."
Reeves says he wishes now he'd asked for a double.
"It's not a pretty sight. In fact, it's probably the scariest moment in the movie," he jokes.
Keanu the Devil's own enigma
[Toronto Sun 14/10/1997]
He's weird, he's mysterious, he's cute but, most importantly, he's Canadian
NEW YORK -- Ask anybody. Keanu Reeves is weird. No, mysterious. No, ethereal.
Taylor Hackford, the director of Reeves' newest movie, Devil's Advocate, calls the actor "a unique entity," and goes so far as to speculate that it's all due to what he calls Reeves' mixed heritage -- that Chinese/Hawaiian/British background.
Oh, get over it. Keanu Reeves' distinguishing characteristic is not that tough to figure out: He's Canadian.
KEANU THE CANADIAN: He's a great hockey player. He is unfailingly polite. He has just the sort of energy, self-deprecating spirit and slightly bent sense of humor that are almost national characteristics up here in the frozen north.
He didn't grow up in America, and so lacks the self-absorption that is acquired (by osmosis) through living in an insular and xenophobic land. But never mind.
Reeves' most Canadian trait is that he's so funny.
KEANU THE COMIC: Here to promote Devil's Advocate, in which he plays a young hotshot lawyer who finds out too late that his boss (Al Pacino) is Satan, Reeves displays a dry sense of humor that seems to be confusing to many in the media. Also, he never sits still, which adds to the general air of pleasant dementia.
For example: Reeves is the bass player in a band called Dogstar. Asked by an earnest reporter what music can give him that acting cannot, the actor displays perfect comic timing before he deadpans, "I get to play music."
KEANU THE KID: There was some chat about conflict with his co-star, Al Pacino, on the set of Devil's Advocate, but Reeves says he actually felt a kind of father thing with the older actor.
Asked if Pacino encouraged him in his work, Reeves imitates the older actor's growly voice perfectly when he says, "Well, it's not like he said, 'You really sucked, Keanu!'"
And what did he learn from Pacino? "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight for yourself. Never stop fighting for the film, for the scene, fighting to create."
KEANU THE CUTIE: Reeves was once written up in the supermarket tabloids as having been united with David Geffen in a gay marriage, though the two men hadn't actually ever met in real life. The actor's personal life is off-limits.
Meanwhile, what's his take on the tabs?
"The only story I've read I wish were true was the one that had me swimming with Sharon Stone."
KEANU THE CONFESSOR: Okay, this Devil's Advocate is all about sin and the modern conscience. What's Reeves' own religious background? "My mother taught me to reject the High Church of England."
Then there was an adolescent phase of questioning and searching: "And of my own volition I went to Saturday morning bible classes."
KEANU THE CONQUERER: His next movie is a sci-fi kung-fu film called The Matrix. It's from the Wachowski Brothers, who did Bound.
"So of course with the Wachowski Brothers there will be tons of blood, guns, action, death, shooting, fighting, t-ts, a--, tons of cool s--t." He swings his arms around wildly for emphasis.
Cheerful fellow.
Sundance Producing No Clear Winner
[E! Online 24/01/1997]
The biggest news out of the 1997 Sundance Film Festival is that no film has distinguished itself as festival favorite or front-runner for tomorrow night's awards. Nonetheless, since Sundance is almost history, the studios are scrambling to sign the few buzz movies before waving bye-bye to Park City.
Roxie Releasing acquired the domestic theatrical rights to one of the festival's guaranteed hits, Stephen Kay's The Last Time I Committed Suicide. This dark film tells the story of beat-icon Neal Cassady, the man whom Jack Kerouc went On the Road for, and features a big-name cast that includes Marg Helgenberger and Keanu Reeves.
Also scoring on Thursday, was Neil LaBute's drama In the Company of Men. Featuring a no-name cast, this low-budget tale of two corporate jerks and the girl they pull a darkly comic prank on could make LaBute this year's Ed Burns. Although there have been no domestic takers yet, Alliance Communications secured the rights for everywhere except North America.
Reeves rockin' down under
[Canoe.ca date unknown]
Rock band Bon Jovi has hired Keanu Reeves' Dogstar as a special opening act for its tour of Australia. Reeves is Dogstar's bass player.
"It is good for them as they are so excited about the idea of being on the road and being in a rock band," Variety quotes Jon Bon Jovi as saying.
While Reeves is trying his hand at rock touring, Jon Bon Jovi is acting up a storm.
Bon Jovi, the actor, is getting generally good reviews for his performance in Moonlight And Valentino and is planning to make another film in January. Called The Leading Man, it is described as an erotic thriller.
Reeves set to play with Devil
[Calgary Sun July 8, 1996]
It wasn't just a chance to jam with his band Dogstar that prompted Keanu Reeves to pass on an $11.5-million payday to star opposite Sandra Bullock in Speed 2.
Reeves is poised to accept the same $11.5-million to star in The Devil's Advocate.
Reeves will play the right-hand man to Lucifer, who has taken up human form as a powerful lawyer. Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Michael Douglas and Jack Nicholson have all been approached at one time to play the devil.
Reeves has a doubleheader still planned for this summer. This month will be the action drama Chain Reaction, starring Morgan Freeman and directed by The Fugitive's Andrew Davis.
Next month, Reeves stars in Feeling Minnesota as a man who runs off with his brother's fiancee.
Reeves set to play with Devil
[Calgary Sun July 8, 1996]
It wasn't just a chance to jam with his band Dogstar that prompted Keanu Reeves to pass on an $11.5-million payday to star opposite Sandra Bullock in Speed 2.
Reeves is poised to accept the same $11.5-million to star in The Devil's Advocate.
Reeves will play the right-hand man to Lucifer, who has taken up human form as a powerful lawyer. Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Michael Douglas and Jack Nicholson have all been approached at one time to play the devil.
Reeves has a doubleheader still planned for this summer. This month will be the action drama Chain Reaction, starring Morgan Freeman and directed by The Fugitive's Andrew Davis.
Next month, Reeves stars in Feeling Minnesota as a man who runs off with his brother's fiancee.
Reeves' pet peeves
[Calgary Sun July 22, 1996]
BEVERLY HILLS -- You can ask Keanu Reeves about touring with his band Dogstar.
You can ask him about his two new movies, the action thriller Chain Reaction and the black comedy Feeling Minnesota.
You can even ask him about growing up in Toronto, his stint last year as the melancholy Dane in the Winnipeg production of Hamlet.
But whatever you do, don't ask Keanu to sign an autograph.
Keanu, who is on a gruelling European and Asian tour with his band Dogstar, flew in to Los Angeles from Dublin to do interviews for Feeling Minnesota in which he plays a man who steals his brother's wife on their wedding night.
Keanu was cordial and even jovial. Instead of pinning a journalist's microphone on his T-shirt, he clipped it on his ear.
He avoided questions he didn't want to answer with an amiable and even playful shrug or a sigh. At the end of the interview, a journalist passed him a photo to sign.
Keanu's whole demeanor changed.
He muttered obscenities under his breath as he scribbled his name on the photo and then stormed out of the room.
The only other hint that Keanu was edgy came when a journalist informed him that his Speed co-star Sandra Bullock said she was terribly disappointed that he had passed on Speed and that she'd miss him a great deal.
"Yeah, sure and you believe that," countered Keanu.
When he saw the shocked reaction of the journalists, he quickly added "Sandra's a great actress. We got along well on Speed and I do hope maybe someday we can work together again."
It was at this exact moment that the autograph request came.
It was the straw that broke Keanu's back.
Reaching his Speed limit
[Toronto Sun July 31, 1996]
Keanu Reeves turns down star role in sequel to hit action flick
HOLLYWOOD -- A raggedy and bearded Keanu Reeves limps to his interview chair, looking a little haggard and a lot like a road weary rock 'n' roll warrior.
That's because he is. His band Dogstar is in the middle of a successful summer tour, highlighted by an acclaimed set at a London club a few weeks ago. Yes, even the cranky Brit pop press got gushy over the Keanu Reeves experience.
"It was fab," says Dogstar's bassist, faking a bad English accent. "We had a great show at the Shepherd's Bush empire."
Unfortunately, the star of stage and screen has returned to the reality of the movie industry, and the inquiring minds who lurk there.
So, before he can talk about his recovery from a motorcyle accident on Sunset Blvd. last May, before he can discuss roles in the action picture Chain Reaction, which opens Friday, and the quirky comedy-drama Feeling Minnesota, which is set for a September release, he must bring me up to Speed -- the sequel.
Reeves, a Toronto native, grimaces, but grimaces politely when the S-word is mentioned.
Then, he clears his throat. He's about to fess up, to deal with that pesky question: Why did he turn down Speed 2 and $11 million to tour with Dogstar.
"My giving up Speed 2 had nothing to do with me being in a band," says the 31-year-old in a measured but calm voice. "It was my own choice."
And he made that choice because? "I guess you could say I didn't want to repeat it."
He certainly won't be revisiting his buddy in a few months when Speed 2 starts shooting with Sandra Bullock and Reeves' replacement, Jason Patric. The fact that he has been the source of some head-shaking confusion over his decision doesn't seem to faze Reeves.
Industry insiders say he's an ingrate for not agreeing to follow up on a movie that made him a multi-millionaire superstar.
Reeves shrugs when that perception is mentioned. Despite some powerful arm-twisting and fancy cajoling, he resisted all temptations. He claims that he wasn't easily swayed from his wants and desires, which have less to do with power and glory than many thought.
He's also Grade A stubborn. For instance, as he recovers from the serious motorcycle accident that required surgery to remove a bone fragment from his foot, he admits that he drove to the interview on, yes, a motorcycle.
He admits something else. He's not as fit as he thought he would be after a tour break and a second operation a few weeks earlier.
"Yeah," says Reeves, "it's a little awkward. I thought I was going to feel better. But it's still kind of hard to walk."
Another good reason to avoid action pictures for a while, although rock 'n' rolling seems to be all right.
