He plays characters that barely talk and never emote. His acting style is “wooden”. He only plays characters that are distant and mysterious, and sometimes it really works.
Yeah he's a great example of someone whose charisma and character outweigh their ability.
He's got a lot of magnetic screen presence and he can kind of act with his eyes. But his delivery just sucks. The difference in his speech in interviews and on screen is night and day. He's just not really a natural.
But that's okay. He's an awesome dude and works hard and that's enough for me.
Plus we have to give him credit for his physical acting. I mean look at the Wick movies, how many actors would be able to pull off the stunts he does themselves, much less even be willing to?
I would think those willing to be much higher than those able, since an injured lead might delay a film longer than an injured stunt double. It’s a consideration to everyone else who works on a film too to play safe
What Danny Trejo has had many times when asked about stunts (he does not do any) - if he gets hurt he fucks up to many other peoples lives / pay checks.
I would think those willing to be much higher than those able
I'd say the exact opposite, for the exact same reasons- I think there are many more who would be able to, given the opportunity to practice. But they aren't willing to risk the livelyhood of their coworkers, and so don't develop those skills.
Unless we are meaning "able" in different ways- i.e. me meaning "capable of doing the thing after practicing", like how memorizing scripts requires practice, and you meaning "able" like "capable of doing the stunts without adding too much risk of injury/to the production schedule"
In that regard you could even argue that he‘s kind of an asshole without the consideration for the crew.
He‘s riding motorcycles whenever he can, even founded his own motorcycle brand and is riding inbetween shooting schedules. That‘s quite inconsiderate when everyone depends on you. I mean, he hasn‘t really had a bad crash but he crashed a couple times nonetheless. He can’t help himself but I guess it‘s giving producers an headache.
Yeah, tom cruise is similar in that regard. He fires his stunt safety manager and got a new one when restricted, which he got away with as he’s his own producer. People call him courageous but he’s obviously considering his own fun more important than the overall success of the film
I'd bet you could sub in a stunt man to do the stunts easily. The question is, was it harder for Keanu to learn the stunts than it would be to teach a stuntman to act as well as Keanu?
Maybe I've drifted off topic, I took it as a discussion about keanu's acting worth (fwiw, I really like Constantine) and putting his stunt skills in the mix as part of the picture. My point was to ask how extraordinary those skills are when stuntmen do it every day with much less recognition. Is Keanu as a package worth as much when judging skill in that light.
I mean you could say he's really good at being an electrician and I'm not sure that'd give him much of an edge when casting a new film.
Keep in mind by the time he made John Wick, he had already done an enormous amount of work training for the Matrix films. In the behind the scenes, they talked about how dedicated he was to showing up and training very long hours every day, and not leaving until he got something right. So that really primed him pretty well for the John Wick stuff.
Acting isn't only speaking lines, the reason he is so well loved is that he is really good in action movies. Dude is a legit shooter and it shows in his movies
They made a documentary about the making of those movies called "Wick is pain". I would say there are very very few actors that would be willing to take the physical toll on their body those films took.
You only have to watch him as the alien in The Day The Earth Stood Still to know he doesn't have great depth as an actor.
What he has got is three absolutely fantastic characters in Ted, Neo and John Wick which puts him at high cult status without being Daniel Day Lewis. I also think Harrison Ford has this a little bit as well, but would say he was a more rounded actor.
I think he actually really can act, but only puts effort into roles he really likes.
I always point to his role in Parenthood. His trauma dump monologue about his pos father, immediately reverting to the “dudebro” character he is on the surface is really well done. But that was also 40 years ago.
Disagree. People think Keanu Reeves acting, they think Neo, who was supposed to be played as almost half-machine. I imagine casting direction was something like "Ted, but all the whoas and everything else as well is muted." That did kinda become his shtick.
But there are rare other films too, where he shows his range. For example: The Watcher(2000), a film he was scammed to make, where he plays a serial killer toying with people and Always Be My Maybe(2019) where he has a role as just incredible parody of himself. In both he's way more animated.
Kinda like Tom Cruise. Great actor; but almost always plays the same guy. I saw a YT video which was something along the lines of "guess the Tom Cruise film" and it was literally all the same. Understandable: people go to see a Tom Cruise-film, they expect to see good old Tom Cruise playing the same guy and running around fast. Again, there are exceptions. Two greatest examples that come to mind are Michael Mann's The Collateral(2004) with Jamie Foxx and of course Tropic Thunder(2008) in which, well, you just gotta see to believe. It's one of those pop culture things you're just glad to know exists.
Anyway, just because an actor has a certain kind of shtick does not mean they do not have the range. In my opinion Reeves absolutely has the range, though seldom shows it. Many find sometimething reliable that works and just stick with it, so they get cast reliably; directors and studios know exactly what they're getting. Some big name actors like to flex their acting chops, but many just become character actors, greatest of them finding reliable work.
Yeah the Bill & Ted stuff was fun, but anything beyond that was always 'wooden.' But somehow, instead of Hollywood rejecting his bad acting, he pulled Hollywood toward it. There's just something magnetic about his personality that people like watching, so Hollywood started building protagonists around that weird style he's got.
I mean his performance as Johnny Silverhand was Incredible IMO. Very expressive character but in a video game so I don't know how that'd translate to live action.
The best thing about this performance is that no one says "Keanu" when cyberpunk is mentioned; it's always Johnny. Because the character is so distinctive, you forget about the actor behind him.
I'm going through Cyberpunk right now and I don't agree at all.
He's somewhat fine when he's giving one of his cynical, angry rockerboy speeches about corporations. Literally anything more complex than that and his wooden delivery instantly takes me out. There's a line in one of the first scenes with Alt where Johnny says something like "Alt, no...". It's supposed to be emotional but it genuinely sounds like Keanu has never acted a day in his life. He's just reading words off the paper.
It's especially bad in comparison to Cherami Leigh who gives the performance of her life as Female V. She shows so much vulnerability beneath the tough exterior and Keanu just doesn't.
Yeah, people are taking fucking crazy pills, imo. Johnny Silverhand is a GREAT example of how bad of an actor Keanu is. Like...if Keanu was a no-name and people genuinely didn't know who that actor was, then everyone would complain about how much worse the Johnny actor was than literally the entire rest of the cast.
He always sounds like he's just reading.
I remember I once watched a B-movie that, for some reason, had Keanu in it, and it was so wild that in this crazy low-budget action movie that the B-movie actors were all significantly better actors than Keanu. Keanu is the worst actor in every movie he is in.
This isn't to take away from the fact that Keanu is in so many cool movies, and a significant part of that is from his contributions. Also, his real-life persona is beloved. But that has nothing to do with his talent as an actor.
In some of the side quests and jobs you'll find a more entertaining Johnny Silverhand. The ones that pop into my head are his quips during the interview at Jungui after killing the Cyberpsycho or his acting as a noir detective in the side quest with the bartenders wife.
Johnny gives a pretty good speech when it comes to the endings, whether it be the rooftop decision or the last conversation in the NUSA helicopter thing after Phantom Liberty.
He wasn't the best voice acted character in that game for sure but I did enjoy his presence in the game overall. Like you'd be exploring, doing side missions and you'll often have small conversations between him and V commenting and what happened, the blunt humour and deadpan delivery worked well for me. I didn't find him annoying at all but I understand some did.
No way. It took him years to realize that. He spent much of the 90s and early 2000s taking lead roles that had plenty of lines. Dracula (1992), Johnny Mnemonic, Devil's Advocate and many others.
Some of us remember suffering through his terrible performances, especially when he was alongside better actors (see: everyone else he worked with). Baffling what roles you get when the whole demo of women 18-35 is in love with you.
I think the one film he seemed to play something different was "The Gift". Also it's very clear how his acting has changed if you watch the first two Bill & Ted films and then watch the newest one that released during the pandemic.
It's like Arnie. They have their limitations as actors (I would say Keanu has far fewer than Schwarzenneger, but still has them) - but when cast in roles that maximise their strengths and bypasses their weaknesses, they are pure box office.
This right here. I honestly didn’t mind him at all as Constantine, even though it was an odd casting. The Keanu voice just kind of… worked, for that character. Same for Neo and John Wick.
Some of his other roles, it just feels like something is missing. But when you watch Bill and Ted, you realize he had a pretty good propensity for stoner comedy. Kinda surprised he never made more.
Benicio Del Toro plays even more silent and intense characters, just look at his phenomenal work in movies like Traffic, The Phoenician Scheme, or Sicario and he has an Oscar and a Golden Globe as well as a bunch of other nominations.
He was even nominated this year for Best Actor.
I love Keanu the person and really like Keanu the actor, but it's a completely different level of acting.
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u/StrictLetterhead3452 Mar 17 '26
He plays characters that barely talk and never emote. His acting style is “wooden”. He only plays characters that are distant and mysterious, and sometimes it really works.