Keanu Reeves: The Young and the Restless

Since Permanent Record, Reeves has starred in the so-so The Prince of Pennsylvania, in which he plays--guess what?--a rebellious teenager, and he delivered a sparkling performance as Steve Martin's wired but likable hot-rodding nephew-in-law (a rebellious adolescent) in Parenthood. In the first real stretch of his career, he also turned up as a "mawkish youth" in Dangerous Liaisons, a remarkable film that seems all the more remarkable because just about everyone in it seems miscast. Although it was a terrific idea for Reeves to go out and get himself a role as an 18th century pretty boy in a Stephen Frears film, and although Reeves does a whole lot more with the role than E.T. alumnus Henry Thomas in Valmont (Dangerous Liaisons, Part B), he was even more miscast for the role than some people say Malkovich was for his. The trademark clumsiness was actually a saving grace; he is most convincing when floundering around in the snow dueling with Malkovich, least convincing when he asks Uma Thurman if she does not, in fact, find the opera "sublime," a word that Reeves's tongue does not seem entirely comfortable with.

Reeves admits to being surprised that he got the part in Dangerous Liaisons, considering the inauspicious circumstances of his audition.

"It was just a rag-tag thing: there I was riding my bike, and showing up late, with no pants and no shirt, just my cutoffs, and I do my thing for these two guys who are very English and they say, 'Thank you, but could you be a little bit less American?' I was, like, the classic American goombah," he says. Then he asks, "What's a goombah?"

What was it like working with Malkovich?

"Malkovich was... inspiring," he says. "I only had two scenes with him, but wow. I walked up to him one day and slapped him on the back and said, 'Man, you're the greatest.' It was the classic young-actor/older-actor scene..."

How did the "old" actor react?

"He smiled. He laughed."

Although appearing in the film was a good career move, breaking the mold of badly dressed adolescents getting "F's" in trig, Reeves does not seem terribly happy with his performance in Dangerous Liaisons.

"My Dancing.. .if you compare it to the book... it's awful," he concedes.

Setting aside his foppish role in Dangerous Liaisons, you could argue that Reeves has been doing the same schtick for five films running. In River's Edge, Permanent Record, The Prince of Pennsylvania, Bill & Ted, and Parenthood, he's played a disoriented kid with hair. But if you look at the markets for these respective films, you can see that something unusual is going on with his career, that he's actually tailoring that role to four different markets. Parenthood is a mainstream comedy, the kind that comes to a better theater near you and stays all summer. Dangerous Liaisons is geared more toward the Ebert-and-Siskel crowd, the kind who leave the New Yorker lying around the guest bedroom. River's Edge appeals to people who can name five Jean-Louis Trintignant movies, folks who like the Kronos Quartet, Eraserhead, and not much else. And Bill & Ted is for people who either are, or wish they were, still 14. Similar roles; entirely different markets. This guy's no dummy.

But if you try to get Reeves talking about this stuff, you're out of luck, because he insists that he is just taking whatever roles come down the pike, that there is no method to his madness. For example, when asked which roles he has turned down recently, Keanu mulls it over, then volunteers, brightly: "I turned down The Fly II."

Why?

"I didn't like the script."

"But you really can't do movies like The Fly II at this point in your career, can you? Not after doing Dangerous Liaisons and Parenthood?"

"No you can't do Fly II." Then, Ted-style, he volunteers, "But I'd do Evil Dead III."

"You would?"

"Sure."

"Why?"

"Because I liked the guy who did Evil Dead II. It's schlock and it's superficial and it's frightening and it's scary and it's outrageous and it's clever and it's fun."

Whatever you say, Keanu.

Like many people in this business, Keanu doesn't seem to pay as much attention to certain recurring patterns in the roles he chooses as, say, critics. Asked why he repeatedly has affairs with older women in his films, not to mention the bedroom scene with Tracey Ullman in a recent episode of her show, Reeves just shrugs it off: "I don't know. Maybe it's my youthful, boyish character. Besides, it's only happened three times." Asked about the exotic hair styles he uses in his films--the demi-Mohawk in The Prince of Pennsylvania, the asymmetrical razor-cut in Parenthood, the shaved look in the upcoming Kasdan film, he says, "It's just hair." Asked about the arms and hands and shoulders and hair and what-not flying all over the place, Reeves says he's not aware that he's doing it. He's just doing it.

Unlike previous incarnations of Keanu Reeves, who was prepared to commit himself on such controversial issues as bathing and who he'd like to have sex with, Reeves now goes out of his way not to say anything unpleasant or impolite about anything or anybody. He lives in New York, but that's no reflection on Los Angeles. He likes the directors he's worked with. He respects other people in the field. He would be more than willing to do roles like Charlie Sheen's in Wall Street. He buys trucks for members of his family. He loves the theater, but he loves movies, too. He would like to be in a play, he would like to accept roles that would broaden him a bit, he would like to do all sorts of things. Mostly he wants to get the interview over with so he can go home and play his bass guitar. Here are a few Keanuisms:

On Steve Martin: "He seems like a genial fellow."

On Ron Howard: "I enjoyed working with him."

On Toronto: "It's basically just a big shopping plaza now."

On New York: "It blows me away."

On Sean Penn: "He has so much power and intelligence, it's incredible."

On People He'd Like to Work With: "Sean Penn, Christopher Walken and Dianne Wiest."

On Henry Thomas, who plays the Danceny role in Valmont: "Who's he?"

On Whether or Not He's Going to Become a Big Star: "There was one day last week...I don't know."

Oh, yes, and other than William Hurt playing a tree being William Hurt playing a tree, which we've already heard about, is there anything else Reeves has to say about his co-star in the upcoming I Love You to Death?.

"He's a real serious, tense guy, you know? So I went up to him, asked him, 'Hey, Bill, what kind of movie do you think we're in?' And he said, 'Well, Keanu, if your name is Marlon and my name is Harlan, I guess we're in a comedy."

Like all 24-year-old actors who have spent more time on a skateboard than in the library, Keanu would like to play Rimbaud, the irrepressible French poet who burned out at age 19 and died in, or not far from, a gutter. But until The Arthur Rimbaud Story begins production, the young man will have to be satisfied with scripts like Bill &Ted's Excellent Adventure II.

Actually, Reeves says, there is, as yet, no completed script for Bill & Ted II, and even if there were he hasn't made up his mind he wants to be in it.

"If we do it, I'm going to be 26, so I don't know. I was 22 or 23 when I did the first one."

But he does know enough about the preliminary plot to say: "We die and go to Hell. Then there's a parody of The Seventh Seal where we have to play Death at chess. But we don't know how to play chess. So we play Battleships instead."

Those who marveled at the infinite subtlety of Bill & Ted I will be pleased to know that in the sequel, Death will be portrayed as inhabiting a "stark, sterile suburban house." "It's like condo death," beams Keanu. Rimbaud would have loved it.

When I look back for a last glance, Keanu Reeves is standing at the corner of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue in front of the Plaza Hotel, where Robin Williams winds up at the end of Moscow on the Hudson. The actor is looking this way and that, trying to decide whether to go back uptown, or downtown, or across town, or perhaps into the park. His hands are thrust into his pockets, his shoulders are all hunched up, he's doing that thing with the hair again. He looks kind of worked up. Gee, Keanu, why don't you just try relaxing? Everything's going to be fine. Everything's going to be just fine.

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Joe Queenan wrote Movieline's January cover story on Jessica Lange.

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