[ Telephone rings ] ♪♪ [ Slow-motion gunshot ] -This is a story of death and rebirth.

A story of resurrections.

It's the story of a man who remains a riddle, despite repeatedly baring his soul and inviting us to explore his mind.

-Hit me.

♪♪ -The story of a star always on the move who has tirelessly reinvented himself.

Spanning the decades... flouting fashion... defying the years.

The story of an actor who has calmly attained a unique status as a model... ...an ideal... a messiah.

♪♪ ♪♪ Keanu Reeves is hard to catch up with.

[ Indistinct shouting ] Hounded by legions of fans since the late 1980s, he has always enjoyed confounding his pursuers.

His career has been chaotic, veering between unlikely hits and senseless gambles, but also exceptionally rich.

He has been an undercover FBI agent in "Point Break"... -Whoa!

-Whoa!

-...a lost boy in "My Own Private Idaho," an intrepid law enforcer in "Speed"... ...a digital-age savior in "The Matrix," a relentless hitman in the John Wick saga.

And yet...

Even though viewers have been seeing his face in close-up for almost 40 years, Keanu Reeves remains a mystery.

His unconventional behavior has sparked umpteen online debates.

-And now you've been dubbed the Internet's boyfriend.

How do we feel about that?

-I've been what?

-Even more than as a film star, he has won online renown as a paragon of decency, passing unscathed through the Hollywood inferno.

A success this atypical begs questions, especially when the star is such a reluctant interviewee.

-Um, yeah, I just -- I'm pretty private, so.

-But you don't want people to know if maybe you've done something nice to someone in private.

-No, no, no, no, no, no.

-[ Laughs ] -And when, like Neo in "The Matrix," he lets us see beyond appearances to his true self, a dive into his psyche reveals a character who is puzzling or even downright odd.

-And there's something tragic about it.

Imagine being in his skin, never being able to sit down, never being able -- you know, hard -- thoughts and things just keep coming in through my mind.

And I'm just, you know, I'm here and I'm now and I'm ready to go.

Let's go.

He's alright.

[ Both chuckle ] -He's mysterious.

[ Glass shattering ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -K-Keanu Reevus.

-His exotic-sounding first name is a riddle in itself.

-Keanu, Keanu, Keanu, Keanu, Keanu Reeves, Keanu.

-It's an unusual name.

I've not heard it before.

Is -- Does it mean something in a different language, different part of the world?

How did you come by the name?

-Let's see.

I was told that it means "cool breeze over the mountains."

-Wow, that's very nice.

-It was from my great, great uncle.

-And it's -- What origin is that?

-Hawaiian.

-Part Hawaiian, Reeves has been on the move ever since he was born.

[ Engine revs ] -Look at what a cute little boy you are.

There you are, Keanu Reeves.

-Look at you.

How cute were you?

Look at that.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -You were born in Beirut, right?

-Yes, in Beirut and then Australia and then New York City.

And then circumstances happened, as they do, and we ended up in Toronto.

-A child of the world.

-[ Chuckles ] -And throughout a nomadic childhood spent zigzagging the New World, he was being brought up with certain old-world values.

-Your mum is English.

Is that right?

-Yes.

-Do you think you've picked up any English traits from your mother?

-Um, I guess -- What did I learn?

I learned manners.

I have manners.

I have good manners.

-An absent father who left the family when Keanu was little adds to his aura of mystery.

-Your dad is in prison.

Is that true?

Because that's cool.

-That's false.

-Oh, that is false.

-I think he got out.

-What was your dad accused of?

-I believe it was narcotics.

-Oh, really?

-I think it was, I think.

-But you probably avoid your dad, right?

-Um, I haven't seen him since I was, I think, 13.

♪♪ -No wonder motorbikes were a revelation to him.

For the young Keanu Reeves, they epitomized independence and freedom.

-Where I grew up in Toronto, every summer, motorcycle gangs would come into a place called Yorkville.

-Whoo-whoo!

-Those bikes, those people, those pirates, I think, touched that 10-year-old kid in a way.

For me, it's really a great place to think, to feel, to get away.

-But for the moment, he had yet to find his path in life.

Thirsting for escape, he signed up as a reporter for a Canadian television program, a job that allowed him to flit from one passion to another.

-I asked him to try his hand at drawing me, and I discovered what long, hard work just sitting for a portrait is.

-That's pretty fun.

-Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

-How long did you do it?

-They fired me after the first year.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ -Eventually, towards the end of his school days, Keanu Reeves fell in love with acting.

-I guess it started with some of the teachers I had.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

When I was a kid, I guess I was like 15, 16 when I put myself into an acting class.

The youngest person in the class, you know, 7:00 at night in Toronto, just trying to figure it out, you know, just because I wanted to act.

♪♪ -♪ Well, I'm awake ♪ -He did the rounds of auditions, appeared in several ads, and landed his first acting part in a sitcom.

-[ Clears throat ] Have we been introduced?

-Hey.

Where do you keep the towels?

Pete said we could use the shower.

-For Reeves, becoming an actor was a passport to other lives, other worlds.

-Performing or acting had a sense of freedom to it, a sense of pleasure.

Um, but then also the places that you could go in that.

-His passion for acting took him elsewhere towards new horizons.

-When I was 20 years old, I traveled across the country to Los Angeles, California, to Hollywood with a dream.

♪♪ I hope something gets out there that is magic, you know?

And if not, I'll just be sad and cry.

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -In the city where anything can happen, Keanu Reeves found a home from home.

Now he had to find himself a new family.

-You guys can go back in time.

-Yeah, you're gonna have the most excellent adventure through history.

Dudes!

[ Laughter ] -First, he found a brother, Alex Winter.

The two of them vividly remember the moment when they met at the audition for their first cult movie.

-I have the memory of walking into that room, and it was just Alex, and we started to speak, and it turned out we both played bass, and, um, I don't know, it seemed like we had a humor rapport pretty quick.

-Action!

♪♪ -Amiable goofballs Bill and Ted explore time and parallel dimensions, spreading their creed of enjoyment wherever they go.

-Congratulations on Earth.

It's a most excellent planet, and Bill and I enjoy it on a daily basis.

-Yeah.

-Nothing can dent their optimism.

-Sounds good, Station.

-[ Grunts ] -I mean, I love Bill and Ted.

You know, it was a -- They're wonderful characters.

They have the life, the naivete, but the joy of life, the eternal, impossible innocence.

-Catch ya later, evil dude.

-As befits seasoned travelers, they communicate via a universal language of mime, interspersed with frenzied air-guitar riffs that pay homage to another universal language -- music.

-When he and I started working on it together, you know, we did -- we were talking certainly the idea of playing them very physically, almost more like silent-movie characters.

-I'm commedia dell'arte.

-Excellent!

-Excellent!

[ Guitar riff ] -Air guitar is Bill and Ted's -- -Expression of joy.

It's like an impact.

It's like something that, you know, air guitar doesn't, like, dawn on you.

-Right.

-You know what I mean?

[ Guitar riff ] -You're feeling great.

It's like -- [ Grunts ] You know, out comes this thing.

-Let's rock!

-Let's rock!

♪♪ -Like any other self-respecting youngster, Reeves co-founded his own group in the '90s, Dogstar.

-What's the advantage of having a star like Keanu Reeves in your band?

-Gets us a lot of attention that normal bands in our position might not get as well as -- -Like this interview.

[ Laughs ] -Thanks.

-And it also causes a lot of grief, like... -This interview.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Riding the wave of "Bill and Ted," Reeves explored the entire repertoire of adolescence.

-You need a license to buy a dog or drive a car.

Hell, you need a license to catch a fish.

But they'll let any...be a father.

-He was a startlingly wise innocent in "Parenthood," a rebel at odds with society in "River's Edge," and "The Prince of Pennsylvania"... -You...!

-...a listless moron in "I Love You to Death," on which he met River Phoenix, a defining encounter.

In "My Own Private Idaho," the two of them became poster boys for the disaffection and blighted hopes of a whole generation of youth, a bold career choice that still amazes Gus Van Sant, the film's director.

-Keanu really was looking for something that was not a bigger movie, and then River was like really trying to figure out whether he should do it.

Took him a long time, and there was the three of us on the phone, and we were just going like, "Yeah, yeah."

-Getting away from everything feels good.

-Yeah, it does.

-When I left home, the maid asked me where I was off to.

I said, "Wherever, whatever.

Have a nice day."

-I gave Keanu "City of Night" to read, and he read "City of Night," but he read like, all, like, five of John Rechy's other books.

-So Gus Van Sant's movie also gave Reeves the chance to declare his love for the Beat Generation.

-I have a place in my heart for Kerouac and Ginsberg and Cassidy.

So as a kid, I, you know, read "Dharma Bums" and "On the Road," and they had a real influence on -- on my days, you know, trying to, you know, the adventurous aspect of just going.

You know, I remember jumping in my car with friends and going to New York City.

And I'm sure that from those books were pushing me out there.

And it appeals to people.

You know, we want to burn.

We want to live life.

You want to soak it up.

-But "My Own Private Idaho" was a gamble that didn't pay off.

He was too young, too handsome, too innocent.

For the first time, Reeves' career was stalled.

-I never thought I could make it as a real model.

You know, fashion-oriented modeling, trying to make a living.

I'd like to have a professional attitude.

Hell, yeah.

Here I am.

-In the eyes of mainstream audiences and the film industry, he was only fit for eye-candy roles like the ideal lover in a Paula Abdul video.

Even Reeves himself didn't seem to take the episode seriously.

-Yeah, we do a little kissing.

-♪ But no one else has touched me ♪ -Paula Abdul and I kissed on the lips, which is bonkers.

But cool.

Thank you, Paula.

-Can I ask you something?

Have you ever been in love?

-If it was, I didn't know it.

You?

[ Classical music plays ] ♪♪ -When highly regarded filmmakers did hire him, it was for fall-guy roles that made use of his bland good looks and air of childlike innocence.

-I remember the first time I walked on the set of "Dangerous Liaisons."

They gave me my shoes that morning.

I didn't have one minute of rehearsal and they're like, "Okay, you're going to walk in the scene with John Malkovich and you're going to come in.

And now these are props you've never had before because we didn't have them to give you, and you have to do this thing and then another thing," I'm like, "I'm in shoes I've never been in.

I'm in...Versailles."

I'm like, "Okay, I'm not ready.

Help me."

-Poor boy is quite harmless.

[ Door closes ] -And when he did get the chance to be directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it turned out he had been cast as easy prey for Dracula's female acolytes.

♪♪ -One day I'm going to be on the set playing Jonathan Harker in this scene, and Coppola is going to go, "Action!"

♪♪ He leaves me in his castle with three of his wives, three women, and what they do is they suck my blood.

-Aah!

-I'm like this 1897 proper solicitor, and I'm, like, touching them and trying to say no, but yes and no and yes.

♪♪ Ha.

You know, and you got to do it.

-You got to do it.

-Your heart's all crazy.

But that's the...man.

That's why you're there.

-[ Speaking foreign language ] -In films by Kenneth Branagh, Coppola and Stephen Frears, his stiffness and monotonous delivery contrasted with the other actors' performances.

The experience left him bitter.

-It was a part that I went, I tried to find internally.

It was a part that really needed, um, to be looked at more externally.

I've had people -- I remember one time I was outside a bookshop in Los Angeles and this guy asked me for dollar.

He goes, "Hey, you were in 'Dracula.'"

He goes, "I don't care what they said, man, you were good."

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -Even when he landed the highly ambitious part of Siddhartha in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Little Buddha," he seemed lost in a role that was too big, too important for him.

-But I'll do my best.

What is Buddha Dharma, Buddhism?

Was that your question?

It's, uh...

I don't even bel-- I'm lost in space.

I'm completely...

Sometimes, you know, when you have ideas and you're doing things, you can articulate them, and then sometimes you can't.

So it's very hard for me when I'm thinking about is kind of different than this.

So I'm -- Excuse my, uh... [ Sighs ] -Dumbfounded by cinema legends, Reeves became a prime target for critics.

Parodists had a field day with him.

-I moved on to my most accomplished performance, playing an Englishman in Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula."

Dear Mina, I'm stuck here in Count Dracula's castle.

I do not know how much longer I'll be here.

But I miss you, and I hope to see you soon.

-Keanu Reeves, a truly dreadful actor.

-He has no charisma.

He has no warmth and no believability.

-Keanu reminded me of a Labrador retriever who you loved having around.

-Keanu Reeves just cannot sell this character.

Camera loves his face and the way he moves.

I think that's sort of the excuse for putting him in movies.

[ Dramatic music plays ] -[ Screaming ] -Around the same time, his friend River Phoenix suddenly died.

For Reeves, it was the end of innocence.

-Yeah.

Um, River Phoenix.

♪♪ -His acting career looked as if it was dead in the water.

To survive, he would have to get beyond purely verbal expression.

♪♪ To use his physical strength to regain control of his destiny.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Hold on.

-[ Coughing ] ♪♪ -Reeves owed his first resurrection to the female director Kathryn Bigelow.

Unlike everyone around her, she saw the floundering young actor's potential to become a hero, maybe even a star.

-Keanu Reeves.

[ Gunshot ] -Kathryn was fixated on him.

She was the one that said, "I'm going to turn him into an action star."

-Keanu was at the beginning of his career.

People didn't really know who this guy was.

And of course, Keanu has gone on to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

-FBI!

Drop it!

[ Gunshots ] -"Point Break."

♪♪ -Her unexpected support released abilities Reeves had never yet tapped.

-I hadn't been in an action genre picture, right?

So Kathryn Bigelow really had to fight to have me to play that role.

So thank you again, Kathryn, um, because that changed my life.

-Freeze!

[ Gunshots ] -Get down!

-As Johnny Utah in "Point Break," Keanu Reeves revealed his full potential, unquestioningly following the precepts of a mentor... -You don't know it yet, but you got it right there.

-...the legendary stunt coordinator Glenn Wilder.

-Kathryn said, "Is it possible for the actors to do their own fights?"

So I set up weekends where I had everybody that was supposed to be involved, and we worked out and I taught them how to do fights, how to move, why you're doing it, what's happening, where's the camera.

[ All grunting ] -And he was really the guy who taught me and allowed me to start with that idea of "You can do it."

[ Glass shatters ] Come on, Keanu!

-Get the...out of this house!

-Come on!

Do it!

-Wilder revived Reeves' muscular memory, for in his teens, he nearly opted for a sporting career.

-Good catch.

-I am a hockey guy.

I grew up playing hockey.

I remember I was doing a play, and then in the front row, the two front rows was the hockey team.

Like the guys came out to see, you know, the play.

And it was nice.

For me it was like hockey, acting, hockey, acting, and then acting won.

-You gonna jump or...?

-That's my man.

[ Laughter ] -And it's like, you have to be there at that moment, which I think is very familiar to athletics and sports because you do all of this preparation and then they say "action."

-...yeah!

♪♪ -The power he revealed in "Point Break" earned him lead billing on what was to be one of the biggest hits of his career.

-There's a bomb on a bus.

What do you do?

-Everybody hold on.

-Keanu Reeves, "Speed."

-As challenger for the 1994 summer film, Keanu Reeves was up against the then king of blockbusters.

-I really think this will be the action picture of the season, if not the year.

-Okay, good, I hope so.

♪♪ Though "True Lies" is... ♪♪ -Well, we'll see, we'll see.

-We'll see, yes.

♪♪ -Eventually, audiences were won over by this new kind of hero.

[ Siren wails ] -I wanted to bring across the really kind of not naive but the pure thought of what a policeman is.

You know, good guys, bad guys.

-Everybody, I'm Jack Traven, LAPD.

We have a slight situation on the bus here.

Ma'am, if you'll please sit down.

-No, I won't.

You're scaring the...out of these people.

-Ma'am, please!

-I think that what's nice about Keanu is that he is not the kind of character that we're used to seeing in these kinds of movies.

-In contrast with the invulnerable muscle Man of the '80s, Reeves' character was human, capable of going to pieces.

-Jack.

-[ Shouting indistinctly ] -Jack, Jack, come on, Jack, come on!

Don't give up on me!

Jack, come on, please!

Jack, stop it!

Jack, come on!

Stop it, okay?

-And instead of playing the dominant male, Reeves showed total respect towards his screen partner, Sandra Bullock.

-She's [Chuckles] She's brought a very -- You know, she's been fighting the direction of just being like, you know, the complete damsel in distress.

-She is still under his spell.

-I think about how sweet Keanu Reeves was and how handsome he was.

It was hard.

It was really -- It was hard for me to, like, really be serious.

Like, he would look at me and I'd be like [ Giggling ] [ Laughter ] And I'd have to try to, you know -- And his job was just to keep -- My dress sort of kept flying.

♪♪ And the whole stunt, like, he just keeps my dress down.

-That's sweet.

-Voilà.

-But Reeves soon felt caged in by the highly conventional action blockbuster form.

-Hey, what are you doing?!

-The best I can!

-He stunned the industry by turning down a fortune to reprise his role in "Speed 2."

-"Speed 2: Cruise Control."

-I was offered a lot of money to play this part, so people are interested in why you would turn down the money.

And, um, you know, some -- I've met some people who say, "Well, you know, it was a great film.

Why aren't you going to make another one?"

-Oh, man!

[ Explosion ] [ People screaming ] -Just artistically, I just, as an actor, wanted to go someplace else.

♪♪ I basically tired of running.

One of my hopes to be able to act in different genres and to play different, you know, different kinds of parts.

♪♪ -Towards the end of the 20th century, Keanu Reeves was feeling his way forward and looking for new mentors, just like the young lawyer he plays in the horror film "The Devil's Advocate."

-I know you got talent.

I knew that before you got here.

It's just the other thing I wonder about.

-What thing is that?

-Tired of wondering and of being judged, the youthful star went back to his roots, Canada and the theater, opting to exile himself in Toronto and revise his classics.

-Also, you know, in the middle of all the success from "Speed" and all that, you decided to do "Hamlet."

-I love the play.

I love the character.

It's the role.

And plus, I found a theater director who was foolhardy enough to let me do it.

So I said, "Well, this is never going to happen again."

So I went off and I played the part.

-Now, Jennifer, what about Keanu Reeves?

-It was a bad performance, I thought.

What is ironic is that he was trying to be so self-effacing as Keanu Reeves.

He was trying to be so modest.

I mean, he was deflecting a lot of attention.

That attempt to be modest erased his performance as Hamlet.

It carried into this deadly self-restraint as Hamlet, which is, you know, wrong.

-It's a disappointment, I know.

We have them.

All of us have them.

You use it, you embrace it, and then you move on.

[ Engine revving ] -Just as his career seemed to be at a halt, an unexpected opportunity opened up a brand-new field of possibilities.

-Um, right now I'm getting ready to start training for a film that I'm going to start hopefully in March.

It's a kung fu, science-fiction picture.

-The man who for more than a decade had been taken for a good-looking dumb was about to embark on one of the most ambitious and complex films ever produced in Hollywood.

♪♪ ♪♪ At the dawn of the new millennium, Don Davis' emblematic film score heralded Reeves' rebirth as an actor in a movie that was seen as a popular culture milestone from the moment it was released.

-3, 2, 1!

-I can't believe that I'm here and it's absolutely awesome.

-The Wachowski sisters' trilogy wasn't just a hit.

It became a craze or even an obsession for a whole generation of moviegoers.

-You know, we'd hear stories about people going, you know, more than once, twice, three times, 9 times, 10 times, 11 times.

I didn't expect that at all.

♪♪ It's a riddle, and it's something that you have to experience for yourself.

For myself, this is the end of my beginning.

♪♪ -You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

-Like Keanu Reeves, computer programmer Thomas Anderson steps boldly into the unknown and reveals the existence of a hitherto uncharted universe, becoming Neo, the messianic Superman of the emerging digital age.

♪♪ "The Matrix" shoot was a world in itself, ideal for Reeves the explorer.

On the set, you would bump into Hollywood stars.

-Laurence Fishburne is the man.

-Ah!

-An Australian crew, geeks from every continent, and stuntmen straight from Hong Kong.

The entire motley crew fired by the daringly innovative nature of the project.

-I felt like there was a really great excitement about it.

I remember when we showed up meeting the people who were building the sets.

It was in a new studio, you know, costumes were being built.

We were getting ready to go, and it seemed like everybody who was working on the picture had a genuine enthusiasm and excitement about what they were working on.

-Being part of this cultural melting pot gave Reeves a new lease of life.

It was like being young again.

-For me, doing the, you know, with "The Matrix," it's like playing.

♪♪ -I'll smash this place to bits!

-I'll smash this place to bits!

-I'll smash this place to bits!!

-There's something kind of childlike, childhood-like about it.

-[ Grunting ] ♪♪ -[ Laughing ] -That's fun.

One day I will no longer just be a computer nerd.

I will be a superhero!

♪♪ And it's for the kids.

And there's some cool kung fu movie-- kung fu movies.

Cool.

It's for the kids.

♪♪ -Learning martial arts meant he had to take the photogenic, highly demanding action movie skills seen in "Point Break" and "Speed" to new levels.

-Something a little more fun.

How about...combat training?

[ High-pitched whining ] ♪♪ -I know kung fu.

-Show me.

-It was incredibly ambitious to think that we could get four guys who had, you know, not had any kung fu training in their lives to participate in something like this.

-[ Grunting ] [ Laughter ] -But for Reeves, the huge physical effort required was one of the project's attractions.

-And one of the gifts of the film is that it asks for four months of training before, you know, because then that makes it and elevates it.

♪♪ -Battling with himself yet again, Reeves reinvented his body via a grueling course of training, meanwhile struggling with a medical problem that ironically threatened to paralyze him.

-Yeah, coming into the training for the first one, I'd had a two-level fusion in my cervical spine.

I was -- My legs were getting -- I was getting paralyzed.

But it really hindered me a lot in training because I couldn't kick.

I couldn't train kick for like two of the four months.

Aah!

[ Indistinct talking ] Aaah!

-Can he do it?

-He can do it, yeah.

-In the course of this ordeal, he became friends with his coach, Tiger Chen.

-I just teach Keanu.

We've been training together for like -- almost like two years.

And he always say, "Tiger, you're killing me.

Never somebody treat me like this, push, me so hard, make me cry every day."

-We get the steam.

-Meeting Chen opened a door onto a completely new world.

-And through the course of these years and this time we spent together across from someone who's, like, driving your legs open and pushing you down to the ground, it's like, "So where did you grow up?!"

[ Laughter ] Ah!

God!

And so we became friends.

♪♪ Tiger, tell me more stories about your master.

-[ Speaking foreign language ] -[ Speaking foreign language ] -Tiger Chen was the inspiration behind Reeves' first film as a director, "Man of Tai Chi."

♪♪ ♪♪ -On paper, that sounds insane.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's go make a movie in Mandarin and Cantonese in China.

Um, that's crazy.

And that sounded really exciting to me.

But because it was part of the story.

It was the story that I wanted to tell.

♪♪ The fights would be, you know, traditionally just an action sequence.

I was hoping to make them dramatic.

And dramatic in the sense that they -- we were involved with the character and we're watching him evolve and change.

♪♪ And so what that meant is sometimes we're just on his face and we're not seeing the action.

We're just seeing him.

And hopefully that takes us into the story.

♪♪ -What's the matter?

Are you afraid of what you can do to them?

-And the film is kind of promoting the idea that you can sometimes sacrifice yourself, that you think it's for the good.

But maybe there's another way.

It is personal.

I mean, it is a part of my worldview in terms of storytelling.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Electricity zapping ] -But the real world was no longer enough for this incorrigible traveler.

♪♪ [ Gunshots ] ♪♪ For the part of Neo, Reeves literally had to step inside the machine.

-Just trying to figure out how to do it.

How do you do it?

-Digital worlds offered Reeves a new field to explore.

-I wanted to go on an expedition to find out what that meant.

And what was the impact of digital, you know, and why?

Where did we come from?

Where are we going and where are we today?

-He made a documentary about the digital revolution, in which he invites great filmmakers to guide him through this unknown terrain.

-The documentary we're doing is called "Side by Side."

It's a documentary about the science, art and impact of digital cinema.

We've kind of come to this place where is it the end of film?

Where are we today?

-It's exciting because it's a reinvention of a new medium.

-This technological metamorphosis gave him a different perspective on acting and the world of show business in general.

-You're presenting complete unreality and making them feel like it's real.

-Well, I'm betting you've been on a couple of movie sets.

There was a kind of a wall there and nothing over there.

There was 30 people standing around.

There's a guy with a boom mike.

There's fake rain.

What was ever real?

-This isn't real?

-What is real?

How do you define real?

-But it was important for me to ask people, how do we know what is real?

-In embracing this unprecedented upheaval in the history of cinema, Reeves, like Neo, accepted that virtual universes may embody another reality.

-I don't know.

I was having dinner at a friend's house, this director, and he had some kids.

They hadn't seen the film "The Matrix."

So I start to say, "Well, there's this guy who's in a kind of virtual world, and he really wants to know what's real."

-What truth?

-There is no spoon.

♪♪ -There is no spoon.

-And the young girl was like, "Why?"

And I was like, "You don't care if it's real?"

And she was like, "No."

I mean, it's awesome.

I mean, it's awesome.

In an industry where actors have tried to remain perpetually young, we wondered about digital faces that could become immortal.

-In the same breath, he explored what it meant to be an actor in the era of photorealistic computer graphics.

-In a weird way, we're licensing our performances in a way, too, with editing in the first place.

-Right.

-But I guess if you're creating it and making that avatar then do whatever you want, but then you could do multiple projects, Carrie-Anne.

-Could just stay home.

-You could just stay home.

-I'd say Arthur is doomed if he's up to something.

I'd say Arthur is doomed... -The versatility of digital technology naturally led him into other forms of expression.

Animation, comics.

-This is a story about an immortal man cursed with power, forced into violence, and searching for meaning in a life consumed by chaos.

-Video games.

Keanu Reeves explored every available medium.

-Wake the...up, samurai.

We have a city to burn.

-So it's been fun.

And that was kind of what I was interested in.

You know, the different options that the game could play.

You know, playing the same person, but with different versions of him.

-That's what I need you for.

-It's like, "Who are you?

How do you want to play the character?"

The future's yours for the taking.

-Ironically, for a private person who shuns social networks, he has become the most popular star on the Internet.

Paparazzi and Internet users have joined in, intruding on the actor's privacy, and each stolen instant is a revelation.

In these snatch sequences, Reeves emerges as a totally good, extremely humble person.

-And you're eating my shoelace.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Eat my shoes.

[ Laughs ] Puppies.

-Pictures of him carrying film equipment for his crew... giving up his seat in the New York subway... or sharing lunch with a street sleeper have gone viral and have been turned into GIFs, memes, and songs celebrating what some have called "Keanusense."

-♪ And I watched him in awe, shaken deep to the core ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm not alone anymore ♪ ♪ A whirlpool of puppies and vague neon light ♪ ♪ All purple and fluffy ♪ ♪ Please take me inside ♪ ♪ They're swirling and laughing, awakening my mind ♪ ♪ 'Cause I am breathtaking tonight ♪ -Out of all this, a new public persona has emerged, Keanu Reeves as modern sage, stating universal truths with disconcerting eloquence.

-♪ He's one of their own ♪ -What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?

[ Laughter ] -[ Exhales deeply ] I know that the ones who love us will miss us.

[ Audience awws ] [ Applause ] -♪ 'Cause we are breathtaking tonight ♪ ♪ Yeah, we are breathtaking tonight ♪ ♪ We are all breathtaking tonight ♪ -You're breathtaking.

[ Laughter ] -You're breathtaking.

You're all breathtaking.

-This unique online fame takes Keanu Reeves way beyond movie-star status.

-We give you this Keanu Reeves statue.

-He has come to embody decency... -Follow my dream.

-...altruism.

Some even see him as a Zen master.

-And I, friend, am the dream weaver.

-He has inspired countless books on well-being, full of the axioms he semi-reluctantly declaims on talk shows.

-I'm not a fighter.

I'm a lover.

-No, no, because if you're a lover, you got to be a fighter.

-How so?

-'Cause if you don't fight for your love, what kind of love do you have?

No, I'm kidding.

[ Cheers and applause ] -It's so obvious, so elegant.

So simple.

-Hey, man, let's, uh, pump the brakes on the crazy train, alright?

-His frequently erratic career, oscillating between obscure indie films and B-movies verging on Z movies, are now seen as, at worst, a test of his humility and ability to let go.

-I mean, it's nice to be the first, but sometimes it's good to be the last, so I don't know.

Dun-dun-dun dun.

-[ Laughs ] [ Gunshots ] -He seems to have become totally bulletproof.

♪♪ When John Wick appears on screen for the first time, he seems to sum up everything that makes Keanu Reeves who he is.

[ Indistinct shouting ] ♪♪ This invincible gunslinger embodies, first and foremost, the unsurpassable, outstanding physical commitment the actor has shown throughout his career.

-You know, I've benefited from a lot of training and a lot of great teachers.

♪♪ You're watching him go through these fights and to do these things.

As a performer, it's fun to be able to be there, to create that connection, to hopefully, the enjoyment of the film.

-John Wick embodies Reeves' endurance, his ability to pick himself up despite changing fashions, career mistakes and even tragedy.

♪♪ -You know, I really love playing John Wick.

I like the guy.

When I think about him, I think about his will.

I think about, like, how he gets beat up, but he keeps fighting for his life.

[ Vehicle approaches ] ♪♪ And, uh, I love his feeling that he has for his wife, um, and trying to honor her memory.

-Over a decade before Wick mourned his dead wife on screen, Keanu Reeves heard that his ex-girlfriend had died in a car accident a year after losing their baby.

[ Thunder rumbles ] [ Thunder crashes ] ♪♪ The character of John Wick also highlights an irony.

Keanu Reeves' online image as a being of light makes him one of the very few Hollywood actors who can seemingly get away with anything.

-It's not real.

-In the era of political correctness, he is totally at ease with the blatantly gratuitous violence in his films.

-It's a pencil, and it has a pointy, sharp bit here, which is really great for injuries.

It's fairly sturdy, so you always want to try and have bracing going in.

Got to have a pencil fight.

-He debases himself in degrading roles.

-It was a very difficult performance to give.

Keanu let himself be vulnerable in a way that very few stars of his stature would.

-Stop!

-I love how Evan is confronted, shamed, controlled.

He's got this kind of idea of being in control and in control of things, and he acts out of control.

Some of it's violence.

Emotional and physical.

But to me, I think it's really fun.

-He regularly plays detestable individuals.

-Messing with the devil's going to get you burned.

Everybody knows that.

-You know, there's something so pure about playing a villain like that, you know?

I mean, it's, you know, the villains have such great passion.

-Aaaah!

-You know, it's like a -- It's uncomplicated.

You know, it's like "I want, I need, I must have," you know.

The, you know, protagonist is always like, "I don't know.

Maybe I'm searching, you know.

I need to figure it out."

-I didn't come here to kill.

-Then why did you come here?

-Hey, dummy!

I don't know, I'm trying to figure it out.

♪♪ -The constant seeker of knowledge has become a mentor.

-He makes your job easier.

I personally was inspired by him.

-His work ethic is second to none.

-Seeing him there in his costume, it was such a surreal moment.

-My God, pinch me.

-Unbelievable.

-His humility make you feel comfortable all the time.

-Self-effacing and hardworking, he has developed an unusually strong bond with his audience.

They are with him as he suffers and then struggles to rise to his feet.

He himself is surprised and grateful for his longevity.

-So I'm really grateful to be able to, um, um, earn a living and have a career.

You know, try and have a career, you know, it's something that I love and a simple thing, just to have fun.

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -In the last few years, a strange online rumor has come out of nowhere.

Keanu Reeves is supposedly immortal.

-Have you ever seen the website keanuisimmortal.com or heard about this?

-I've heard about it recently.

-Yeah, this is fans of yours, and what they do is they find old paintings of dudes that look like you.

[ Laughter ] Look at this.

What do you think?

[ Cheers and applause ] -This curious theory is another way of expressing Reeves' resilience, the way he has reinvented himself time after time to the point where he has achieved a unique status in the film industry.

-If you want the truth, Neo, you're going to have to follow me.

♪♪ -The rumor of immortality also reflects his strange ability to elude us over and over again.

But the chief source of Reeves' popularity is surely the pleasure of accompanying him as he crosses new frontiers and opens up fresh vistas.

[ Elevator bell dings ] No one knows where he is heading next, but the journey promises to be fantastic.

♪♪ ♪♪ -♪ A whirlpool of puppies and vague neon light ♪ ♪ All purple and fluffy ♪ ♪ Please take me inside ♪ ♪ They're swirling and laughing, awakening my mind ♪ ♪ 'Cause I am breathtaking tonight ♪ ♪ A whirlpool of puppies and vague neon light ♪ ♪ All purple and fluffy ♪ ♪ Please take us inside ♪ ♪ We'll burn any city, just say it's alright ♪ ♪ 'Cause we are breathtaking tonight ♪ ♪ Yeah, we are breathtaking tonight ♪ ♪ We are all breathtaking tonight ♪ [ Puppies yipping ] ♪♪