Keanu Reeves' life and career in pictures: every triumph and tragedy
He's been Ted, he's been Neo, he's been John Wick – but who is Keanu Reeves behind the most iconic characters he's played?
From bouncing around cities as a child, to losing one of his best friends in the middle of filming a breakout movie, and suffering painful personal tragedies, Reeves' life hasn't been all Hollywood glitz and glamour.
Keep reading to learn all about his life and career so far.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 2, 1964, Reeves is of Native Hawaiian, Chinese, English, and Portuguese descent and grew up in several cities around the world.
His parents divorced in 1966 when his father, who met his costume designer mother while she was working in Beirut, abandoned the family when Reeves was just three.
Afterwards, Reeves' mother relocated to Sydney, Australia with her young son, before moving to New York, USA, where she met and married Broadway and Hollywood director Paul Aaron in 1970.
The blended family moved to Toronto but the relationship didn't last and they divorced in 1991. Reeves' mother married and divorced again, but Aaron remained close with Reeves and helped him get a job at a theatre in his youth.
Little did anyone know that in a few short years, Reeves would be on the big screen himself.
Reeves grew up with his sister and one half-sister (he has another through his father, but they're not close) and struggled at school due to his dyslexia and "rambunctious" attitude.
He attended four different high schools and was even expelled from one before he started his acting career, which he almost didn't pursue.
As a teen, he played on his school ice hockey team and had his heart set on playing for the Canadian Olympic team – until he suddenly changed his mind and decided to pursue acting at 15.
Two years later he dropped out of high school, landed a Coca-Cola commercial in 1983, and at 20 he snagged his debut TV role on Canadian series Hangin' In (pictured).
That same year he packed his bags and moved from Toronto to Los Angeles in the hopes of making it big.
Years after the fact, Reeves revealed that in the first years of his career talent agents were unsure of his appeal because his name sounded "too ethnic" and encouraged him to change it.
For a while he went by 'K.C. Reeves' or 'Casey Reeves', but the fake names didn't stick.
He landed a few small roles and made his TV film debut in 1986, when he starred in NBC's Babes in Toyland alongside actress Jill Schoelen (pictured).
They reportedly began dating around the time of filming and were an item for about three years before splitting in 1989.
She went on to date Brad Pitt while Reeves' star continued to rise.
Reeves starred in his first feature film in 1986, when he acted alongside Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze in Youngbloods, an ice hockey movie.
He cashed in on his past with the sport for the role, in which he played a goalkeeper, and snagged a string of other movie roles after it released.
There was a supporting role in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and a few teen dramas like The Night Before (1988), The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988) and Permanent Record (1988).
Though not all of his early work found commercial success, critics were quietly impressed by Reeves' acting and he was primed for a breakout role that would shoot him into the spotlight.
In 1989, he joined Alex Winter as co-leads in sci-fi comedy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which turned out to be a surprising success despite trouble during production.
"We went through a very tumultuous time, actually, even getting it on the screen," director Stephen Herek told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019.
"There was a period of time where it wasn't even going to be released. And then it's even more gratifying that when it got released, it actually did well."
Though it didn't make Reeves a household name right away, he loved the spirit of the film.
"We were playing these clowns, fools, but in an epic sense that they're confronting tragedy with ebullience," he told the outlet. "They never say die, they never quit."
Also in 1991, Reeves and River Phoenix wowed critics and audiences alike in the independent drama My Own Private Idaho.
The film proved Reeves was ready for more mature roles and his career spiked in the years that followed.
He starred in Point Break (1991) with Patrick Swayze and even became a bit of a heartthrob, winning the Most Desirable Male award at the 1992 MTV Movie Awards.
It looked like the handsome young star was about to be the next big thing in Hollywood, and not just for his acting.
Reeves also started his music career in 1991.
He and a mate named Robert Mailhouse founded alternative rock band Dogstar after they met by chance in a supermarket.
The band's lineup originally included Reeves on bass, Mailhouse on drums, and Gregg Miller on vocals. Bret Domrose then joined the band on guitar in 1994 and later replaced Miller on vocals when he left the band in 1995.
Reeves would jam with the band often and had aspirations of touring with them, but with his acting career starting to take off, that's where his focus had to be.
In 1992, he starred opposite '90s icon Winona Rider in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, based on the novel.
Other famous faces on the cast list included Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins, so it's no wonder audiences flocked to see the film, which grossed a massive US$215.8 million (approx. $326.5) worldwide.
Though Reeves' forced British accent copped a bit of ridicule, director Coppola defended the actor in 2015, saying the actor "wanted to do it perfectly, and in trying to do it perfectly it came off as stilted".
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and four British Academy Film Awards, but prestige wasn't all Reeves got out of the project.
Phoenix's death occurred just over a month after Reeves started filming Speed and director Jan de Bont changed the shooting schedule to allow Reeves time to grieve before he tackled big, emotional scenes.
"It got to him emotionally. He became very quiet, and it took him quite a while to work it out by himself and calm down. It scared the hell out of him," de Bont told Entertainment Weekly in 1994.
As well as dealing with the tragedy of his friend's death, Reeves was new to the action genre and didn't know how to tackle some of the more physical scenes and stunts at first.
The changed during filming, as Reeves became very invested in performing his own stunts and even jumped from a moving car onto the bus in the film himself, a stunt du Bont had specifically disapproved of the actor doing.
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