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In Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Keanu Reeves’ character, Ted Logan, lives by the mantra ‘Be excellent to each other’. It seems like that line rubbed off on a young Keanu Reeves, who was just 24 when the first movie came out in 1989, because the Internet is awash with fan stories of the much-loved Hollywood star being, well, excellent to other people.
He enjoys the company of those less fortunate
In 1997, paparazzi caught snaps of Keanu sitting on the sidewalk in Hollywood with a young homeless man, listening to his stories and sharing drinks and snacks with him.
He hangs with normies
Multiple stories tell of how, on movie sets, Keanu would spend time getting to know each and every member of the crew, no matter how far down the ladder, and would hang with them over his own co-stars. Similarly, social media threads dedicated to encounters with Reeves are full of stories of him being absolutely bloody lovely to selfie-hunters.
He buys mad gifts for people he works with
The special effects crew on The Matrix: Reloaded got Harley-Davidson motorbikes.
He takes pay cuts to save jobs on his movies
It reportedly happened on the Matrix movies, when budgets wouldn’t flex enough for the special effects team to operate, so Keanu relinquished a chunk – estimated between $35 and $80 million – of his own fee to keep everybody happy.
He speaks to his fans the way you wish your girlfriend/boyfriend/other spoke to you
When Keanu told a room of fans at 2019’s E3 convention they were “all breathtaking”, his comment became the stuff of meme legend.
He’s developed his own technique for making women feel comfortable in photos
Fans have noticed that when Keanu poses for a photo with a female, be it a co-star or fan, he hovers his hand above their lower back instead of placing it on them, making for a warm-looking photo without pushing any personal boundaries.
He rides public transport AND gives up his seat
The practice of giving up your seat to someone older, frailer or pregnant-er than you is the main reason why people in London seem grumpier than the rest of the UK, because they’re constantly having to weigh up complex moral scenarios in which a grateful pregnant woman is actually a mortified obese person and a charmed elderly person is actually about 10 years your senior. It’s not necessarily common practice on mass transit around the world, but that didn’t stop Keanu doing the mental maths and offering his seat to a lady with lots of baggage when riding the New York Subway in 2015.
He has a sixth sense for what fans want
SBNation.com writer and producer James Dator shared his own experience with Reeves on Twitter, detailing how he’d served the actor while working in a cinema box office and tried – but failed – to get an autograph. “2 minutes later there’s a knock on the door behind me that leads into the box office,” Dator wrote. “I assume it’s my manager. It’s Keanu… He hands me a receipt from the concessions stand that he signed on the back. He then casually throws an ice cream in the trash can and sees his movie.”
He does method acting in the cutest way
To get into the mindset of his Toy Story 4 character, toy stunt rider Duke Caboom, Keanu reportedly hopped on a table at a lunchtime meeting with the producer and execs behind the movie and began throwing poses.
He’s trying to cure kids’ cancer
In 2009, Keanu revealed he funds a private foundation that aids children’s hospitals and cancer research, hitherto unknown to anyone. “I don’t like to attach my name to it, I just let the foundation do what it does,” he told Ladies Home Journal.
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