exiting the picture 10 years later. At the age of 17, following
a nomadic childhood and an early adolescence that saw him
live as far afield as Sydney, New York and Toronto, he headed
off to Hollywood with very little to lose. By then, much to the
disappointment of the maternal grandparents who had largely
brought him up, he had already been expelled from high school.
To this day, he is yet to officially finish school.
While his formal education might have been
lacking, he had been working on his thespianic
credentials since the age of nine, having appeared
in countless theatrical productions. He made
his movie debut proper in Youngblood, a 1986
sporting coming-of-age tale. He didn’t, however,
register on the Hollywood star Richter scale
until 1989, when he played the eponymous Ted
in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a time travel
comedy that remains a cult favourite and which,
in 1991, gave rise to its own, equally-
lauded sequel, Bill and
Ted’s Bogus Journey.
Coasting along
on moderate
success in the
early ’90s as a
leading man-
in-waiting,
he also found
time to play“Reeves is no stranger to
fronting franchises or to
real-life tragedies”
igafencu.comigafencu.com 109109