Keanu Reeves: Revisited
I've always held a great love for the actor Keanu Reeves and his impressive body of work. It all began with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which led me to seek out The Razor's Edge, My Own Private Idaho, and of course Point Break. (Side note: Point Break--the next Rocky Horror Picture Show?) His range is ambitious--the man played Buddha for chissakes. He turned down the Val Kilmer role in Heat to play Hamlet in a Canadian theatre production. Also, he once conversed with me, mono a mono, for no shorter than 10 minutes at an L.A. diner. I told him one of my favorite films of all time was Point Break; he said he was sorry because it is a really cheesy movie. I was sure he must have been high, having strolled in with his motorcycle helmet on even after sitting down and taking a booth (it had been removed after I struck up a conversation). It was everything anyone could ask for in a celebrity encounter. He told me that if I wanted to get to Palm Springs that day, I'd better leave soon to beat the traffic. Later, as me and my friends sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I told them, "Keanu warned me about this." It was rad.
Anyways. He has a new movie coming out called Street Kings and I highly recommend viewing it to celebrate 4/20. Here is a classic before-he-was-famous gem:
And here's a story about his new film, hot off the UK Press Association:
Reeves Street Kings shoot 'intense'
Keanu Reeves admits he found himself in the middle of a pretty intense shoot while filming new cop movie Street Kings.
"This shoot was very intense but you didn't have time to unwind and get ready for the next day so that focus I really enjoyed," he says.
"When the film was done there was some couch time."
As LAPD cop Tom Ludlow, Reeves was involved in every scene, and had to immerse himself in a much grittier, violent world.
"I got a lot of help from my director (David Ayer)," he says.
"He kind of felt I was a little too fuzzy and warm so he put me in situations to get into my non-fuzzy world.
"I met with a lot of police officers who were very generous with sharing what the job was like and I trained with some weapons guys so it was just really imagination. Trying to internalise the stories that I heard and going from there.
"In the end you're trying to fulfil and hopefully realise the scene."
However, despite the gritty subject material, Keanu still has faith that not everybody can be completely nasty.
"No I don't think we're all bad, otherwise what would Santa do?" he smiled.
2 comments:
Ms. Amity I do believe you have misconstrued our casual banter and have mistakenly painted me as a half-wit, and an outright simpleton under the influence of illegal substances to boot. As you may recall, I did indeed use the term "cheesy" insofar as to illustrate my film's (Point Break's) camp aesthetics per our discussion of Susan Sontag's essay "On Camp" and the great cinematic feat it provided, that is, the failure of this film to be taken seriously despite the sincere efforts as felt through Patrick Swayze and others' performances. As I recall, in our discussion we had contemplated whether or not the aspects of the androgyne were intentional in the casting of Lori Petty to my more effeminate, vulnerable Johnny Utah character. Further, we had determined that the heated arguments between my character and Gary Busey's Agent Pappas were pure camp in that my overly-angered delivery bordered on the self-parody yet did not cross that line. We concurred that my acting choices were pure genius as a result.
You are correct in your assumption that I was high, however.
My apologies, Keanu Reeves, your account of our conversation is more accurate.
San Dimas High School Football Rah!
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