Keanu Reeves paid tribute to fellow actor Patrick Swayze yesterday at a news conference in Toronto.

"He was an artist and a beautiful person, and our condolences go to his family," the Canadian actor said of Swayze, who died Monday night after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Reeves, 45, was attending a Toronto International Film Festival conference for the movie The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, in which he stars with Robin Wright Penn. Their writer/director, Rebecca Miller, was also on the panel.

Reeves worked with Swayze on the movie Point Break, a 1991 sport thriller about surfing and bank robbers. Reeves talked about Swayze's passion for life and for his craft.

"There were some skydiving sequences for this film that we did together, and as filming was going along, it came to be that Patrick was jumping out of airplanes all the time," Reeves said. "And eventually he had over 30 jumps. Production served him with a cease-and-desist order, and it lasted until we got to Hawaii. Then he started jumping out of planes again."

Reeves smiled. Then he said of Swayze, "He wanted to experience life, he wanted to be good at his work, he wanted to take the opportunity the film gave him ... He did it with an open heart. He was very generous. He just lit up a room. He had a really good sense of humour and he lived life to the fullest."

In The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, Reeves plays a guy in the neighbourhood who becomes an ally to Pippa.

"He has three or four responsibilities in the piece. He's the friend, he's the weird neighbour guy, in a way he's the lover -- so I got to play three roles in one," Reeves said.

Asked about turning points in his career, Reeves said he's been lucky to have more than one.

"Early days, just starting out, I met an agent. I was playing Mercutio at a community centre here in Toronto, and I went from that to getting a chance to do River's Edge."

Another example was landing that role in Point Blank, he said.

"That was a really big change when I got a chance to do that. I got to do something I don't think I would have been the first choice for. But (director) Kathryn Bigelow saw something, and I got to run and jump and that changed my life as well."

The actor seemed to be only half-joking when he said, "Acting is my life. If I'm not working, I'm working on working. It's pretty much all I do."