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Keanu Reeves celebrates milestones and new role in 'John Wick' action film

Actor Keanu Reeves is shown in an interview with The Canadian Press in Toronto on Monday October 20, 2014. It's been a year of milestones for Reeves, or "significant birthdays," as he likes to refer to them with a laugh. In 2014, his sci-fi action blockbuster "The Matrix" turned 15, his high-octane crowd-pleaser "Speed" turned 20, and his '80s doofus buddy comedy "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" hit the 25-year mark. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
Original Publication Date October 22, 2014 - 12:45 PM

TORONTO - It's been a year of milestones for Keanu Reeves, or "significant birthdays," as he likes to refer to them with a laugh.

In 2014, his sci-fi action blockbuster "The Matrix" turned 15, his high-octane crowd-pleaser "Speed" turned 20, and his '80s doofus buddy comedy "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" hit the 25-year mark.

Not to mention Reeves' personal birthday — the big 5-0.

"I know, I'm 50! Half a century!" the seemingly ageless Toronto-raised star exclaimed in an interview to discuss his new action film, "John Wick."

"I've been around and there have been some pictures that some people have liked, which is really awesome," he added, noting he sometimes watches those films.

"When they come around sometimes I will (watch), because for me it's like opening up a photo album. It's like, 'Oh, I remember those people, I remember the times.' I can look back, so there's a kind of reflection and fondness."

It was on the "Matrix" movies where Reeves first met Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, movie stunt experts and co-directors of "John Wick," which hits theatres on Friday.

The two were stunt doubles on the "Matrix" films — Stahelski for Reeves, and Leitch for Hugo Weaving — and have been friends with him ever since.

Moving up in the cinema stunt community to the coveted position of second unit director, the business partners came to learn many facets of filmmaking and eventually wanted to make their own film.

They say they were pitched many scripts that they turned down, but when Reeves gave them Derek Kolstad's screenplay for "John Wick," they saw an opportunity "to do something original" with the story of a widower and retired hit man (Reeves) who returns to his old underworld job to exact revenge on ruthless Russian mobsters.

Reeves said he "was secretly hoping that they would want to direct it." "Then they had to get the job, and then they came to me and the other producer, Basil Iwanyk, and they pitched their vision for the movie and it was extraordinary."

That vision included portraying the brutality of the thriller assassin world in a hyper-reality, graphic-novel style with humour. As the protagonist returns to the secret and stylish assassin community of exclusive hotels, currency, code-speak and speakeasies, he battles skilled killers played by Alfie Allen, Michael Nyqvist and Adrianne Palicki, among others. Co-stars include Willem Dafoe, John Leguizamo and Dean Winters.

"It's supposed to be fun," said Stahelski. "If we don't have fun doing it, how are you guys going to have fun watching it? And you're talking to the salty dogs here. It's not like we're 22-year-old film school guys.

"We've been having our asses kicked for the last 20 years."

Stahelski and Leitch said Reeves was the perfect actor for the part because he had "the hard-soft mix" the character needed and they knew he would "put in the effort to make that character come alive."

"After 15 years with him, we know his work ethic, and you couldn't get a better guy in this role," said Stahelski.

The directors got Jackson Spidell, one of their proteges from their Los Angeles stunt team 87Eleven, to double for Keanu in some of the action scenes.

But the actor, who trained in martial arts for the role, did a lot of the sequences himself — sometimes with the filmmakers adjusting choreography on the fly.

"He's absolutely fearless," said Stahelski. "He's the one that volunteered to do the fight: 'I want to be super vulnerable, I want to do it in boxer shorts,' or 'I'm going to do it at night, I'm going to hang on the back of the car, I want rain, I want to be freezing cold.'"

Reeves even got some bumps and bruises on set.

"When you're fighting Adrianne Palicki in a pair of boxer shorts, when you see all those rug burns on his knees, those are for real," said Stahelski.

"This movie, for the smaller budget, it has a bigger movie vibe ... because he's working his ass off, quite frankly," added Leitch. "He's delivering."

Watching the duo made Reeves want to get back into the filmmaker's chair again after making his directorial debut on 2013's "Man of Tai Chi."

"I'd love to direct again, I just have to find the story," he said.

"The past year I've had the chance to make a couple of other films that will hopefully come out next year," he added. "Right now, I'm always kind of working on working."

Indeed, Reeves has a slew of projects in the works, including a possible TV series based on Barry Eisler's "John Rain" anti-hero book series, the recently wrapped Eli Roth film "Knock Knock," and Courtney Hunt's courtroom drama "The Whole Truth."

He said he's also developing the film "Passengers," thinks about returning to the theatre "pretty regularly," and is interested in doing a possible "Bill & Ted 3," if they "can get it together, in the right way."

"So you kind of need to keep working on working," reiterated Reeves, who wrote the text for the 2011 grown-ups picture book, "Ode to Happiness."

"Because to get a movie made, there's a lot of moving pieces that you have to corral and get together."

— Follow @VictoriaAhearn on Twitter.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2014
The Canadian Press

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