The Legend Of Keanu Reeves

With John Wick – the third instalment of which came out last month – Hollywood’s most enigmatic leading man once again established himself as a bona fide action star. But who is he, really? We sit down with the immortal Keanu Reeves in an attempt to separate the man from the myth.

- Alex Pappademas

Here, before you’re quite ready for him, is Keanu Reeves: At the top of the driveway of the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, smoking a cigarette on a low couch, like he’s on his front porch.

He’s been coming here since the early 1990s. The Chateau was rundown and empty then – a seedier, pre-André Balazs version of itself. The faucets didn’t always work. The carpets were dicey. “You didn’t want to take your shoes off,” Reeves says.

It felt like anything could happen. Usually, it did. “You could have a conversation,” Reeves says. “You could have a tryst. You could fucking do drugs. You could hang out. For me, there’s still that pulse here.”

He basically moved in for a while there. Could be found splashing in the pool with the likes of Sharon Stone or hiding in a corner “playing chess with his computer and smoking compulsively to fight stress”, depending which tabloid tall tale you bought.

Now he lives in a house, not far from here, up in the Hills. He’s owned it for about 12 years. Sometimes he sits up there and wonders if it’s the house he’s going to die in. It’s not a preoccupation – he’s just curious if this is going to be it, this place in the Hills. “I didn’t think about that,” he says, “when I was 40.”

Crossing the lobby, Reeves silently side-eyes a case of Gucci Chateau merch. A woman sees it’s Keanu Reeves crossing the lobby and gulps – like, audibly gulps.

He’s shown to a semi-private corner in the garden. Chairs around a mirrored coffee table. A wet Monday morning has given way to a cold Monday afternoon. It’s early February and the No 15 rap song in America is “Keanu Reeves”, by Logic, who was one year old when Point Break came out in 1991.