Keanu Reeves
Actor
b. 1964 · Canada
Reeves grew up in Toronto and began acting in Canadian theater and television as a teenager before moving to Los Angeles in his early twenties, building a diverse career across comedy, drama and action roles through the late 1980s and early 90s.
The perfect blank-slate hero, Reeves's sincerity made Neo's journey from cubicle drone to digital messiah feel earned, one "whoa" at a time. He trained for months in wire-work and martial arts choreography under the same team responsible for Hong Kong action classics, doing a large share of his own stunts for the trilogy.
He turned down a reported nine-figure sum in salary and backend points to instead give a substantial portion of his own earnings to the film's below-the-line crew, a gesture widely reported after the trilogy's release and consistent with a reputation for generosity that has followed him throughout his career.
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