The next time you see Keanu Reeves, keep a close eye on his hands. When given a compliment that’s particularly meaningful, he presses them together in a namaste expression of gratitude. When telling a good story or philosophizing on life’s mysteries, he either gesticulates wildly, arms shooting out in every direction, or he pulls them in close to his chest while turning his hands over and over each other, fingers wiggling and waggling – a physical manifestation of a mind searching for meaning. When he talks about his girlfriend, artist Alexandra Grant, he makes a motion that suggests his heart is growing in size. And in moments of excitement, he does a two-handed fist pump. Of course, he’s also internet-famous for his hover hands – the way he poses for pictures with fans by putting his arms around them without ever touching them. But my favourite Keanuism is when he mimes revving the throttle of a motorcycle, contorting his face like the wind is hitting him at high speed as he lets loose with guttural engine sound effects. It reminds me of his Valley-dude air-guitaring in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure – where his performance as Theodore “Ted” Logan was so innocent, joyous and charming that it immediately made him a Gen-X icon at the age of 22.
Reeves may be 60 now, but he retains the childlike wonder that made Ted most triumphant. To this day, the actor is always ready to have his mind blown, and he follows diverse paths that appeal to the kid who’s still very much alive in the sexagenarian action hero’s body. The star of two billion-dollar franchises, The Matrix and John Wick – and at least 80 other movies – has written a comic book and a novel, both about an immortal warrior who is looking for a way to die. He has also penned a couple of books of poetry with an enlightened slant. He plays bass in Dogstar, a band he describes as “indie pop rock folk” and makes TV commercials for Rogers Internet that showcase his abundant creative interests and how bad he is at video games. His anonymous philanthropic efforts fund children’s hospitals, and he has started at least two companies – an art book publishing house and a custom motorcycle shop.
Chilling on a couch at the Arch Motorcycle headquarters in olive pants, a black T-shirt and a sport coat, with his hair tucked behind his ears, Reeves looks relaxed and content. Over Zoom, I ask about the creative utopia he’s manifested in his life. “I don’t have a master plan,” he says, before sharing the one thing he knows for sure. “You can have your singular feeling of creativity but that always, ultimately turns into a collaboration. The only thing you can do is be born and die alone.” Hmm, I’m kinda lost. So he clarifies: “In birth, you’re alone and then you’re with your mother. Then, in death, you’re hopefully with other loved ones and then you’re alone.”
For Reeves, the ultimate goal is to pack in as many artistic quests as he can between his first and last breath – and he wants to do that with others. It turns out, he makes a pretty great creative partner. “Keanu is the ultimate dream force,” says bike maker Gard Hollinger, co-founder of Arch. “He is always sort of pushing, pushing me to do more, pushing us to do more together.”
In fact, Hollinger needed some convincing right from the start. “I asked Gard if he wanted to start a motorcycle company and he said no,” Reeves explains in their new docuseries, Visionaries. “I said, ‘Come on,’ and he said, ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘Because we’re going to die.’” Hollinger couldn’t argue with that, so now they make bikes – and a TV show about making bikes.
But the series (streaming on the Roku Channel) is actually more about other people. “When we were starting, there were a lot of motorcycle shows, like, ‘Bring in the reality TV team and build your chopper,’” recalls Reeves. “But we said no. This experience with Visionaries, even though it’s through the lens of the motorcycle company, is really more about where does creativity come from? What is it? How do you make it happen?” The artists and thinkers they highlight – people whose mind-expanding, jaw-dropping work in fields like rocket propulsion, running shoe design, architecture, and light and space installation – end up inspiring Reeves and Hollinger in their own pursuits of speed, form and function. “I get so excited about our motorcycles because there is going to be nothing like them on the planet,” Reeves says in one episode, before leaning back in his chair and blissfully adding, “Fuck yeah.”
He may have been born “alone” in Beirut, Lebanon, to a British mom and a Hawaiian dad, but by the age of seven, Reeves’s parents had divorced and he’d moved to Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood with his mom and younger sister, Kim.
“Motorcycle gangs would roar down Yorkville Avenue in the summer. They looked like glorious pirates to these young eyes, and it inspired in me a call to adventure, certainly to motorcycles,” Reeves said at his Canadian Walk of Fame induction. He also cited some of his other favourite childhood pastimes: “tobogganing, go-karts, chestnut fights, British bulldog at lunch and hockey – we played a lot of beautiful hockey – forts, eating rhubarb, peaches, cherries, snowball fights, neighbourhood hide-and-go-seek, trick-or-treating. Then, as we got older, pool jumping. And paper routes, but I was kind of awful – sorry about that.”
Reeves continues to find subtle ways of celebrating his roots. He pulls out his double fist pump of joy whenever he talks about his Toy Story 4 role, Duke Caboom – “the greatest stuntman in Canada.” And he made his childhood dreams come true when he signed a one-day goalie contract last year with the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires – a team he tried out for as a teenager. He couldn’t stop smiling in his brand new jersey – which was later auctioned off for charity. And let’s not forget, he has never adopted U.S. citizenship.
During our interview, Reeves described to me how he approached creative endeavours as a young Torontonian. At 15, he played Mercutio in a Jewish Community Centre production of Romeo & Juliet, and then got some commercial work and small parts in Canadian series before leaving high school and heading to California. “I call it bravery through the ignorance of youth – where you’re just kind of doing it. You don’t know what the world is and you just kind of go. And then as you go through that process, if you don’t get cowed or beaten up – or regardless if you do – you just keep going.”
Keanu is Hawaiian for “cool breeze over the mountains” and it fits perfectly with how Reeves floats among us both on-screen and off – a combination of Zen-like serenity and spontaneous excitement. When I ask what’s up with his youthful approach to life, he says, “It’s a wonderful state to be in. It’s very open, very sharing, very inquisitive. And it has such bounty and reward because it allows you to learn, it allows you to share, it allows you to listen. And those things all feel really good in the human body.” Just like a cool breeze does when it passes over the mountains.
A version of this article appeared in the Summer 2025 issue with the headline ‘Keanu BE Any Cooler?’, p. 134.
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