Oda to happiness

The story of Keanu Reeves, who turned the worst moments of his life into fuel for an acting career.

At the end of the 20th century, Keanu Reeves became a Hollywood star, and the main role in the fantastic picture “Matrix” put him on that step of his career when the directors and producers themselves line up for the actor. However, the subsequent series of personal tragedies destroyed Reeves's plans. For many years, he learned to experience the most difficult losses, then to return to the film business as an actor of persistent and courageous roles.

Career dawn

Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Father left the family when he was three years old, and later got into prison for the sale of heroin. Having spent most of childhood traveling around the world, Reeves for a long time could not understand what he wanted to do. The dream of becoming a hockey player disappeared when he received a serious injury. Later he was expelled from school, and then fate brought him to Los Angeles.

Piercing his way with small roles, by 1986, Reeves received one of the main roles in the youth thriller “on the river bank”, based on real murder. The success of the picture among critics led to the fact that Reevza began to call on the set of other youth paintings. Then he was 22 years old, and such a prospect was quite satisfied with him.

A year later, Reeve's best friend died from an overdose. Four years after that, in 1991, the actor moved away from the roles of adolescents and young people, playing the main role of the FBI agent in the militant "on the crest of the waves."

Successful among critics and spectators, the picture brought the actor fame among major producers, and the nomination “The most welcome man of 1991” according to the MTV television channel was Bonus. Success in the Wave attracted the attention of one of the most famous American directors of the 20th century-Francis Coppola. The Reeves was called to Dracula for one of the main roles.

However, despite the high -profile box office and the success of the film in 1992, according to critics, including the influential edition of Empire , Reeves poorly played the role. However, at the same time, critics noted that few people manage to hold the bar when Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins are shot with you in the same film. These actors at that time already earned a reputation as professionals who easily juggled with complex and extraordinary roles.

Reeves himself understood that the time of experiments in his career came. In 1994, he tried himself in the title role of the fighter “Speed”, which received excellent grades. Then he played a leading position in the romantic drama “Walk in the clouds” and made a break for the theater, brilliantly playing the role of Hamlet.

In 1997, the “speed” had a sequel defeated by critics, but there was no Reeves there. That year he starred next to Al Pacino in the "Devil's Lawyer". An interesting fact is connected with the filming of the film: Reeves agreed to give in more than half of his fee so that Al Pacino would be called into the film. And although the assessments of the film were distinguished , with a budget of $ 57 million, he raised $ 157 million at the box office, strengthening the already attractive status of Reeves as an actor.

In 1999, a fantastic action movie “Matrix” was released, where Reeves played the role of a chosen named Neo, designed to save the world. The loud popularity of the film with the public and critics, followed by its construction in the cult work of the genre, created the halo of glory around Reevz, which he is known to many now.

Family tragedy

Acting success turned out to be a number of tragedies for Reeves. On the eve of Christmas, his lover Jennifer Saym, whom he met in 1998, had a miscarriage. The young couple lost her daughter, which was planned to name Ava Arche Sim-Rivz. The tragedy drove Sim into deep depression with alcohol and severe drugs, and Reeves went to work with his head.

Soon the couple parted. Reeves could not afford to lose his acting career, and Sim simply wanted to forget. In April 2001, the girl died in a car accident, so without discussing with Reeves the pain from general loss. She was buried next to the grave of Ava.

By 2003, Reeves had a new burden - sister Kim dying of leukemia. To be next to his sister, the actor changed her housing, invested more than five million dollars in the study of the disease and donated money to the hospital in which his sister was treated.

Reeves so often postponed the shooting and disappeared in a medical institution that rumors about his drug addiction crawled in Hollywood. Reeves himself later said that even in the most difficult moments of his own depression, he came to the ward to his sister and supported her. Along the way, the actor founded its own combat combat fund and spent a total of 75% of the earnings from the “matrix” trilogy on the fight against leukemia and the study of the disease.

According to the data for February 2017, the disease of the Reeves sister is in remission.

Keanu Reeves in ordinary life

In 2010, the Sad Keanu meme, which arose from the picture taken by the photographer of the publication Splash News, was dispersed over the Internet. In the photo, Reeves was sitting on a street bench in discreet clothes and eating a sandwich.

Against the background of popularity, a lot of people showed interest in tragic events in the life of Reeves. A new wave of rumors went that the actor is in protracted depression, including because he wears inexpensive clothes.

In 2011, BBC journalists asked Reeves how he relates to his meme and whether he considers himself a “sad” person. In response to this, the actor noted that the meme seemed ridiculous to him, but ignored the second question about his personal experiences.

It is difficult to say whether the modesty of Reeves is related in everyday life with hidden depression. Back in 2014, it became known that the actor, whose condition exceeds $ 350 million, lives in an inexpensive house by the standards of his earnings. Unlike many Hollywood colleagues, Reeves did not buy a mansion for himself, throughout the country he will have four to five apartments in different cities. Their actor acquired relatively recently, having spent the most difficult years when his wife died and a sister died, in hotels and rented apartments.

“Money is the last that I think about,” Reeves said in 2003, and since then he barely began to show more interest in luxury. In December 2011, an entry appeared on YouTube, on which a girl dressed in jeans and a black jacket of Reeves gives way to a girl in a New York metro.

This is how you can describe his whole life outside of Hollywood cameras. He mainly dresses in black and unremarkable clothes, does not follow fashion, gives part of the money earned for charity and uses public transport.

Talks about the “wide soul” of Reeves went back in 2011. Then the Reddit user, familiar with one of the employees who worked with Kean, told the following story: after the success of the first film in the “matrix” trilogy, the actor allegedly decided to abandon part of future earnings, which, by third -party calculations, amounted to about $ 80 million. Reeves, based on the story, gave the money to the team in special effects and costumeers.

The story was repeatedly refuted in the media, but this is only another proof that Reeves financial modesty made him in the eyes of fans by a person who is not worried about money. However, another story of the actor's charity turned out to be true: he gave each stuntman the first “matrix” on the motorcycle.

In the same 2011, Reeves, together with the artist Alexandra Grant, published the book “Oda Fortunately”. The illustrated book consisted of the poet of the actor, and the images in the book looked like they were blurred with tears. The ending of the book, however, is inspiring : “It can always be worse,” the author wrote. He later said that the book was only a way to have fun, and it should not be taken seriously.

After the trilogy of the Matrix, which ended in 2003, and Konstantin, published in 2005, Reeves had difficult times in an acting career. Releasing in amateur, then in failed films, he was old, turning from a cult artist into “The actor from the“ matrix ”.”

However, the situation changed dramatically in 2014, when the actor starred in the John Wick militant. The role of the protagonist, the former hired killer of John Wick, who lost his beloved wife due to serious illness, approached the Reeves. This was noted by critics and spectators.

Now, when, after the powerful success of the first part, the second part of John Wick was released, Reeves, apparently, is early to stop. The ending of the militant hints at the continuation, and it is difficult to imagine on the site of the Reeves another actor who would be able to play a modest and generally noble hired killer so honestly.

On February 10, in honor of the release of John Wick 2, the British magazine Esquire published an interview with Reeves. The sweeping material, more like a brief autobiography with quotes of the actor, mainly gives cheerfulness, especially when the author writes about the career successes of Reeves.

The sad part of the actor’s life rises already in the end of the interview: the death of an unborn child, the death of his beloved - the journalist recalls these episodes, and then asks when Reeves plans to settle down.

Already too late. It's over. I will no longer have children.

I am the embodiment of all cliches. Done mortality. Aging. It is better for me to do [grow old]. So many things need to be done before you die.

I know that this is all cliches, just, Lord, where did the time go? Why is the world changing? How much more do I have left? What did I not have time to do? I'm trying to remember the line from the sonnet ...

[30th Shakespeare's sonnet]

I am taking the score to me and I am horrified again by the loss of each, and again I cry at a road for what I had already paid once!

Keanu Reeves

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