Keanu Reeves’ Faces One Tragedy After Another
Actor Keanu Reeves plays characters on screen that seem invisible at times, but off-screen, Reeves’ life is quite different. In fact, the actor recently told the BBC that he is “thinking about death all the time.”
Reeves doesn’t consider contemplating his own mortality to be a bad thing. He actually thinks of it in a positive light. He shared, “Hopefully it’s not crippling, but hopefully it’s sensitized [us] to an appreciation of the breath we have, and the relationships that we have the potential to have.”
Reeves talked to the BBC about “death” not because of something tragic that had recently happened in his life and not because of a movie role. Instead, he was promoting his new book called “The Book of Elsewhere.” This is not a memoir. It’s actually a novel co-written by Reeves and British science fiction author China Miéville.
The novel’s main character is immortal, but he wants to be able to die. It’s based on a series of comic books called BRZRKR that Reeves created.
There are noticeable similarities between Reeves and B, the main character in the comic book series. For example, they both experienced difficulties in their personal life.
One reason Reeves thinks about death a lot is because of those difficulties. Reeves has lost three people that were close to him, his best friend, his girlfriend, and their stillborn daughter.
Page Six reports that Reeves’ difficult life started way earlier than that. His dad wasn’t in the picture for long, and he moved around a lot and had multiple step-fathers. His mom ended up settling down with him and his sister in Canada.
Reeves ended up dropping out of high school and moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting. In 1989, he got his big break when he was cast in the movie “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Around that same time, Reeves was in an accident that almost took his life.
He was riding his motorcycle on Topanga Canyon, which is a road in Los Angeles with a lot of twists and turns. He took one turn too quickly and crashed. It was an hour and a half later before help arrived. As he lay on the road, he thought, “I’m going to die.”
The friend that Reeves lost was actor River Phoenix. It happened on Halloween night in 1993. He collapsed outside the Viper Room club in Hollywood due to a drug overdose and died.
At the same time, Reeves’ sister, Kim, was battling leukemia. Even though he was an in-demand actor, he was still there for his sister and donated millions of dollars to cancer research.
In 1999, the same year the hit movie “The Matrix” hit theaters, Reeves faced tragedy again when his girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth to their child, who was stillborn.
Two years later, Syme died after leaving a party at Marilyn Manson’s house. She hit several parked cars and was thrown from her Jeep Cherokee. She ended up dying from head injuries. She was only 28-years-old.
Five years after that accident, Reeves told Parade magazine, “Grief changes shape, but it never ends.”
Watch the video below to hear Reeves talk about whether or not he’s “sad” and why he thinks some people think he’s sad.