Bodacious!” (Yes, a writer is currently working on a script.)
For his sudden transformation into arse-kicking leading
man, however, Reeves credits director Kathryn Bigelow, now
known for war moviesThe Hurt Locker(2008) andZero Dark
Thirty(2013), but then starting out withPoint Break, in 1991.
Bigelow cast a 26-year-old Reeves as an FBI agent embedded
with a band of bank-robbing surfers led by Patrick Swayze. It
was another ridiculous premise, another huge hit for Reeves.
“It was pulpy, it had a real energy,” says Reeves (who hasn’t seen
2015’s failed remake). “I’ve met people over the years who said,
‘I started skydiving because of that movie,’ or ‘I started surfing
because of that movie.’ ”
Reeves jumped from a plane once during production to get
a taste of what it’s like, but he says that his co-star, Swayze, really
caught the bug. “I think he had 30 jumps while we were filming,”
he says. “The insurance company was, like, no. Eventually, he
got a cease-and-desist from the production company.”
Whether it was because of the surfing, the long hair or the
laid-back delivery,Point Breakstereotyped Reeves as the ultimate
Southern California underdog — an image only bolstered by
the blockbuster Los Angeles freeway thriller,Speed(1994)
— which still persists today.
The irony is that Reeves isn’t a native Californian, or even an
American. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a British mother
and Chinese-Hawaiian father (his name means “cool breeze”
in Hawaiian) and spent his formative years in Toronto, Canada,
with his costume designer mum and her eclectic group of friends,
including singer Alice Cooper. Reeves still identifies as Canadian,
even if he’s lived in LA since he was 20 years old.
“Those were my formative years, from like, 7 years old on,” he
says. He explains his attachment to his home country as “like the
imprimatur of youth, that early sapling that grows into a tree.”
AS HE LEADS ME UP THE STAIRS TO 87ELEVEN’S ANNEX,WE GET A
bird’s-eye view of the place. Most of the floor space is taken up
by a huge blue mat overhung by cables used for “wire work”, the
suspended choreography that allows actors to dodge bullets midair
and pull off impossibly high roundhouses. Today it’s being used by
a stunt team fromLogan, Hugh Jackman’s final Wolverine film, and
Reeves looks on with jealousy. “I always want to work out here,”
he says, “just come in and get some more training.”
For Wick, that meant he had to learn an entirely new discipline:
judo. “I had a little experience in movie fighting,” he says, with
typical (and sincere) modesty. “But I’d never done judo.”
He says the form is tricky to fake onscreen because, unlike
throwing punches, “you really gotta throw someone.”
Reeves adopted a former MMA fighter named Eric Brown as
his sensei. “At the beginning, I didn’t even know where to put
my feet,” he says. “So it was a lot of me learning the basics.”
By the time he flew to New York and Rome to shootJohn Wick:
Chapter 2, which expands the mythology behind Wick’s order of
assassins and reunites Reeves withThe Matrixco-star Laurence
Fishburne, he was a bona fide judo expert. “Keanu is the most
persistent, non-giving-up guy you’ll ever meet,” says Stahelski.
“He doesn’t want to act out the part. He wants to be the part.”
Reeves loves pushing himself during his action sequences,
though he rejects the word “stunt” for anything he does himself.
“There’s an incredible stuntman who doubles John Wick,” he says.
“They hit him with a car. He’s standing there, and they hit him —
that’s a stunt. Me? I’ll shoot some guns, flip some people — and
that’s action. So, yeah, I do as much action as I can, because I love
it — and I love the opportunity to bring the audience along.”
Which is one of the reasons why Reeves never enjoys stepping
aside for the sake of his safety. “I hate that, it’s always a drag,”
he says. “I want to be able to do everything. SinceThe Matrix,
I’ve used this term, ‘super-perfect’. As in, ‘Can we get it super-
perfect?’” On a huge-budget studio movie that can afford infinite
takes, that means doing it until it’s right. On a leaner film like
Wick, where fights that could have been allotted five days might
get two, it means no room for error. “But that’s part of what
makes [a great action film] a pressure cooker,” he says. “It’s the
intensity of just trying to do the best you can in the circumstances
that you have.”LOOKING BACK, HE CREDITS POINT BREAK FOR MAKING HIM THINK
think about his body more. “It was life-changing for me,” he
says. “It introduced me to fitness and training.” He began working
with Denise Snyder, who has remained his fitness guru for more
than 25 years, and has overseen his body throughout his career.
“He can get huge,” says Snyder. “That worked forSpeed.
But usually I don’t think for him massiveness works. OnJohn
Wick, it’s about his presence, and it can’t come from size. It’s got to
come from structure. It’s really about pulling his shoulders back.”
Reeves says that meant not having “huge traps”. “I wanted“Just good
clean fun,”
he says of
John Wick’s
graphic
violence
and huge
body count.
58 MEN’S FITNESS APRIL 2017