 |
 |
HOLLYWOOD -- Keanu Reeves has grappled with his share of demons on and off camera.
His philosophy is "you have to believe that your personal trials make you a better person."
He's definitely had his share of potential-character building traumas.
He was deeply affected by the death of his friend River Phoenix to a drug overdose in 1993. The two had met on Parenthood and reteamed for My Own Private Idaho. In 1988, Reeves crashed his motorcycle into a cliffside in Topanga Canyon breaking several ribs and rupturing his spleen thus the scar on his abdomen. He was purposely driving without the headlight on in what he has described as a "demon ride."
In 1999, his child with girlfriend Jennifer Syme was still born and 18 months later Syme was killed in an automobile crash in Los Angeles. For the past several years, Reeves has been the financial and emotional rock for his sister, who is battling leukemia.
In such films as Little Buddha, The Matrix trilogy and now the dark comic book adventure Constantine that opens today, Reeves has played characters on spiritual journeys.
|
He's eager to discuss those journeys but ask him about his own journey and he passes off the question with a joke or a plea.
"Spirituality is something very personal that should be kept private," he says, refusing to elaborate, but then adds slyly "but let's just say that, in my art, I make up for what I do in my life. Movies are my penitence."
If this is the case, Reeves, 40, has been seeking some kind of personal salvation for the past 25 years. He was 15 and attending school in Toronto when he informed his mother he wanted to be an actor. His first of three stepfathers was Paul Aaron, a film and stage director.
"I worked as a gopher on several of his shows," says Reeves, who recalls one of his more memorable assignments was "bringing cold sodas to Lillian Gish.
"I knew that early I only wanted to act."
He struggled through disappointments like "having most of my scenes cut from Young Blood and teen flicks like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which earned him the reputation of a space cadet on and off screen.
Then came Speed and The Matrix, which morphed him into a box-office titan. "What I can honestly say is that I really love acting," says Reeves. "Anthony Hopkins says that actors learn by doing and the box-office success of some of my films has given me that wonderful opportunity to act as much or little as I like.
"Hopefully this will continue."
In Constantine, Reeves plays a man who has been granted a reprieve from his damnation in Hell. He is hoping he can do as much good on Earth during this hiatus to have his sentence reversed. Constantine's aim is to kill as many of the demons who are masquerading as humans as he can before Satan comes to reclaim his soul. Constantine is based on the British series of graphic novels. The character, inspired by Sting, is a kind of rock-and-roll executioner.
"I had never read any of the books so I had no idea the character had been changed to a dark-haired American," insists Reeves, who says he received the script and offer to star in Constantine when he working on the final Matrix film. "I just liked the character and thought he was different enough from my Matrix character to warrant my saying yes."
Constantine reunites Reeves with Rachel Weisz, his leading lady from the 1996 espionage thriller Chain Reaction.
Weisz says this second time around she and Reeves "are both a little older and wiser."
What impressed her most though was that "fame has changed Keanu so little. He's still the same enigmatic, mysterious guy he was before The Matrix films. That image is not an act. That's who Keanu is. That's his personality."
Reeves says Constantine is such a natural fit he would be excited about spinning the character off into a franchise. "My contract doesn't have a sequel in it, but some of the producers and I fell in love with this guy. We have discussed the possibility of one of two more films but, ultimately, that's up to audiences."