With movies like John Wick, Speed, The Matrix, and several others, Keanu Reeves has become one of the top Hollywood actors. He is also jokingly considered as immortal because of how little his looks have changed over the years. And also because of his striking resemblance to 19th-century French actor Paul Mounet and Vlad Dracule or Vlad the Impaler.
Some facts about Keanu Reeves:
- Did you know that Keanu Reeves‘ first name is pronounced “Kay-ah-noo,” not “Key-ah-Noo.” This isn’t the only misconception surrounding his name. His name’s meaning is the “coolness,” but it’s often incorrectly said that it meant “cool breeze over the mountains.”
- Keanu was named after his uncle Henry Keanu Reeves.
- In the early days of his movie career, his agent thought his name was too exotic, and in his early movies, he is often credited as K.C. Reeves ( (Keanu Charles Reeves).
- Keanu Reeves‘ father passed his General Educational Development (GED) tests while being in prison in Hawaii. His father was in jail for selling heroin at the Hawaii Airport. His father left him and his mother when he was just three years old.
- Keanu’s only sister, Kim Reeves, was born in Australia and had been suffering from leukemia since her first diagnosis back in the 1990s.
- In 1999, Keanu’s girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth to a stillborn daughter just a few weeks before the delivery due date. In 2001, Jennifer was killed in a car accident, when she smashed her car into three parked cars while driving back home from a party.
- In 1991, Reeves’s best friend, River Phoenix, who was also an actor died because of a drug overdose.
- Keanu’s mother was once a stripper and now is a designer. She has been married six times; her husband’s included Hollywood director Paul Aaron, Jack Bond (a hairdresser), Robert Miller (rock promoter), and two others.
- Throughout high school, he was one of the best hockey players but was academically poor because of dyslexia. He played as a goalkeeper in hockey. He was so good that he was named MVP and was given “The Wall nickname.” His dream during high school was to play hockey for Canada But his dream was shattered because of an injury. Though his hockey experience got him a role in his first movie Youngblood.
- Keanu was born in Beirut, Lebanon. His mother is English, and his father is an American with mixed heritage.
- Reeves has citizenship in the United States through his father. In Canada, because of naturalization and in Britain through his mother. Though he always considers himself Canadian, because he was raised there.
- Keanu Reeves had donated about 75 million dollars from his Matrix movie earning to the special effects and costume teams who were a part of the film.
- In the 1990s, Reeves was a part of grunge band Dog star; he played the bass guitar. The band was huge in Japan, not for their music but because Keanu Reeves was the member.