Keanu Reeves is one of the most loved and all time people’s favorite actor. His fans are fascinated by him not only through his roles in his movies but he has gained immense love and respect over the years for his actions during real life events. Like the times while he traveled in a New York City Subway and offered his seat to a woman carrying a huge bag, when he replied in an interview that after death, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us,” how he doesn’t publicize his charity works, how he has a
certain way to respectfully take pictures with his female fans, and the list goes on. While there are lots of thing we know about him, there are lot of things we don’t know about Keanu Reeves or something which is less known about him.
So, here are 15 lesser known facts about everyone’s favorite, Keanu Reeves:
1. He holds Canadian citizenship by naturalization and identifies as a Canadian. Though his mother is English and his father is an American from Hawaii. His father is of Chinese-Hawaiian, English, Irish, and Portuguese descent.
2. His name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian and he was named after his uncle Henry Keanu Reeves.
3. He was a successful ice hockey goalkeeper at De La Salle College, Toronto, Ontario. Keanu was MVP on his high school hockey team and he was nicknamed "the wall" by the team.
4. He even thought of playing hockey for the Canadian Olympic team but decided to become an actor when he was 15, leaving hockey as a hobby.
5. Keanu was once a manager of a pasta shop in Toronto, Ontario.
6. He appeared in three films whose title contains a US state: Feeling Minnesota (1996), My Own Private Idaho (1991) and The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988).
7. Keanu got his abdominal scar from a motorcycle wreck in Topanga Canyon. He was on a, as he reportedly said, “demon ride” (no headlights at night) when he crashed into the side of a mountain. He was hospitalized for a week with broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. When the paramedics came to get him, an emergency medical technician trainee picked up one end of the stretcher. then dropped it by mistake! “It made me laugh, but I couldn’t breathe!”
8. Keanu is said to have took a 90% pay cut on his salary on The Replacements (2000), so Gene Hackman could be cast. He also had deferred $2 million of his salary so that Al Pacino could be cast on The Devil’s Advocate (1997).
9. Keanu was among many actors considered for the role of Wolverine in X-Men (2000) before Hugh Jackman was cast.
10. Learned over 200 martial arts moves for The Matrix Reloaded (2003).
11. He once was a member of a band named Dogstar. He was the bassist and backing vocalist of the mid-1990s American alternative rock band group Dogstar and was one of the two founding members. The band lasted till early 2000s.
12. He described his younger sister Kim Reeves as his best friend, who he said battled leukemia for more than decade.
13. Keanu chose not to attach his name to the organization while setting up a cancer charity. He also supported PETA, the SickKids Foundation, and Stand Up to Cancer.
14. He was also a close friend with his My Own Private Idaho co-star River Phoenix.