Keanu Reeves - A Man Of Our Time And He's Just Living In The Moment

Guy’s always working—68 movies in 35 years. Playing killing machines, doofuses, romantics, messiahs and devils. But always Keanu. Which always means something more.

- Ryan D’agostino

PARIS, THE DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN

He sits in the black leather booth of a Paris brasserie, a porcelain cup half full of cappuccino by his elbow, thumbing the screen of his phone with his left hand, which is caked with slashes of dried blood.

“Let’s see, where is it,” he says, scrolling. He’s searching for a text message he sent to Carrie-Anne Moss, his co-star in the Matrix movie franchise, almost two years ago.

Keanu Reeves had appeared in the doorway of this restaurant exactly on time, on about five hours’ sleep, just a few minutes ago. It’s called Le Grand Colbert, and he was last here for one very long night with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, filming the end of the 2003 movie Something’s Gotta Give. He hasn’t set foot in the place since.

He was wearing a surgical mask, a black knit cap over his long black straw hair, a black motorcycle jacket and jeans. He showed his proof of vaccination to the maître d’. And he walked into the bright salon of a place, nine-metre ceilings and big round bistro lights and brass railings and clinking glasses and waitstaff in clean white shirts and dark aprons.

As he removed his mask and walked down the centre of the restaurant, diners (a good percentage of whom are tourists and are here because of the movie), waiters and bartenders watched him, a surreal, time-warp moment. He was Meg Ryan stopping into Katz’s Deli for a pastrami sandwich.

Is that—?

Does he actually—?