Keanu Reeves quotes

“I'm not a photographer, so I didn't get into F-stops or ND filters or background, foreground, cross-light, all that stuff. But I was interested in the camera and the lenses. That's the world that I'm moving in, in terms of acting and giving a performance.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'”

— Keanu Reeves

“The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew's cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo's choice to know the truth. It's a beautiful, beautiful story.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It's embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.”

— Keanu Reeves

“'Speed' and 'Point Break' were a lot of running and jumping, and then 'The Matrix Trilogy' had a lot of fights and wire work and green screen elements.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I have a producing partner named Stephen Hamel, and we've been trying to generate material.”

— Keanu Reeves

“The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.”

— Keanu Reeves

“But, you know, it's still a drag to get your picture taken when you're eating a sandwich. It's a downer.”

— Keanu Reeves

“When I don't feel free and can't do what I want I just react. I go against it.”

— Keanu Reeves

“Artists are losing the choice to use film. People have a love for it - the grain, how it feels, the texture.”

— Keanu Reeves

“You know what, I'd done an interview show when I was like 16 or 17. One of my first jobs. I did interviews for this television show in Toronto.”

— Keanu Reeves

“Eventually, it came to this place like, 'I'd like to direct, but I need to find the story to tell.' 'Man of Tai Chi' became the story to tell.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I mean, if you didn't get it or if you didn't feel like you enjoyed it, sometimes that experience can change.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I've been pleased to work with so many wonderful stars through the years. This has been an amazing journey. I hope it continues.”

— Keanu Reeves

“My name can't be that tough to pronounce!”

— Keanu Reeves

“Oftentimes, when we think of 3D, we think of things coming out of the screen, but actually, you've got this zero, this negative space, what they call the negative space, which is the scene, what's being filmed in the positive space of the audience. As you can have things come out, you can have all of this depth.”

— Keanu Reeves

“But I think we're also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They've seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There's so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I don't know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It's also changing how we're telling stories.”

— Keanu Reeves

“People were saying that David Geffen and I had gotten married and it just blew me away. Not that they thought I was gay, but that they thought I could land a guy that hot.”

— Keanu Reeves

“Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don't have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.”

— Keanu Reeves

“You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it's been something I've been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it's something I hope to continue because it's interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I am waiting for the right story to tell. Just like 'Man of Tai Chi' just seemed to be the right story to tell. So I'm looking for that. Because I really love directing. I love developing the story. I love actors. I love the cinema of it, the way that you tell a story visually.”

— Keanu Reeves

“But I did 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.' They made a cereal out of it, so once you've had a cereal, it doesn't get much more surreal than that. Surreal cereal.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I've been really fortunate to be able to do different kinds of films in different scales, different genres, different kinds of roles, and that is important to me.”

— Keanu Reeves

“It's easy to become very self-critical when you're an actor. Then you get critiqued by the critics. Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I just felt that if I went into Speed 2, I just... wouldn't have come up out of the water.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I was always interested - I mean, it's kind of part of your job - I was always interested in the camera.”

— Keanu Reeves

“How do people relate to movies now, when they're on portable devices or streaming them? It's not as much about going to the movies. That experience has changed.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.”

— Keanu Reeves

“I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.”

— Keanu Reeves