12 things you probably didn't know about Keanu Reeves

Reeves has previously shared that his name is Hawaiian and it means cool breeze over the mountain.Though his name seems fit for a movie star, Reeves said in a 2017 interview with Jimmy Fallon that when he first moved to Hollywood, his agents wanted him to change it.The new name he came up with? Chuck Spadina. His agents weren't thrilled so he told Jimmy Fallon he then suggested the name Templeton Page Taylor. After that exchange, Reeves said his agents agreed to let him keep his iconic name.During a 2018 interview on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Reeves spoke about his 1983 Coca-Cola commercial. In it, Reeves played a cyclist who was being coached by his dad. He shared that he shaved his legs for the role and that the ad took three days to film. In June 2019, Ali Wong told People that Reeves was the perfect fit to play one of her love interests in Always Be My Maybe, the Netflix rom-com that she stars in as Sasha alongside Randall Park, who plays Marcus.Reeves played a fictionalized and over-the-top version of himself.It was really important to me that all of [Sasha's] love interests were Asian-American, Wong said. And we wanted to find a sexy Asian-American man who would be Marcus' worst nightmare if he decided to confess his feelings. In everything I do, it's very important to show my attraction and desire towards Asian-American men.The only person in the entire universe who fits all those parameters is Keanu Reeves, she added, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter. Reeves is of Chinese-Hawaiian and English ancestry though he was born in Beirut, Lebanon.Though Reeves starred in a film about a speeding bus in the mid-1990s, one of his real-life obsessions is a different type of fast-paced vehicle — motorcycles.Per a 2017 interview with Esquire, Reeves has a sizable collection of bikes, owns his own motorcycle company, and has a number of scars (not to mention a missing spleen) that resulted from injuries he sustained from riding them. The 1993 film was co-directed by Tom Stern and Keanu's Bill and Ted co-star Alex Winter. In it, Keanu appears as a freak that is half-man, half-dog, and fully bizarre.In an interview with GQ magazine, Keanu said that the decision put him in movie jail for over a decade. During this time, he found it incredibly difficult to land roles in films.He said he didn't work with the Twentieth Century Fox, the major production company behind Speed 2, until The Day the Earth Stood Still, which was released in 2008. During a video shoot with BuzzFeed, Reeves said he's always wondered who really wrote Shakespeare's plays since he doesn't think it was actually the well-known playwright. Reeves said that he subscribes to the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare's authorship. The gist of the theory is that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, actually wrote the poems and plays credited to William Shakespeare.When his flight to Los Angeles, California, made an emergency landing in Bakersfield, California, in March 2019, Reeves boarded a minibus with his fellow passengers and seems to have taken action to keep them entertained.Per a variety of social-media videos, Reeves took a road trip to LA with his fellow plane travelers and along the way, he shared fun facts about Bakersfield, played music, and posed for photos.The topic has come up several times over the years, but, per a May 2019 BuzzFeed interview, it seems Reeves has settled on Marvel's Wolverine as his dream role for now. Reeves' mother was a costume designer in Toronto when he was a kid, so she sometimes worked with famous people in the rock 'n' roll industry. Supposedly, one of them was rock musician Alice Cooper. During an interview with Jimmy Fallon in 2017, Reeves said that he doesn't exactly remember it happening but he has been told that rock musician Cooper has babysat him before. Before The Matrix but after Bill and Ted, Reeves was the bassist and back-up vocalist in a band called Dogstar. He performed with Rob Mailhouse, Gregg Miller, and Bret Domrose.Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, they released an EP and two albums and toured the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Japan.They've also opened for artists like Bon Jovi and David Bowie. In a 2015 Vice interview, Mailhouse said Bowie personally requested that the band open for him in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Palladium. I like the sound and feel of the keys, he told Women's Health magazine in 2017. There's something satisfying about having a thought then seeing it on the page.Read More:Keanu Reeves has been in over 60 movies. Here are his 10 best and 10 worst ones of all time.THEN AND NOW: The cast of 'The Matrix' 21 years laterThe best memes about everyone's 'internet boyfriend' Keanu Reeves

12 things you probably didn't know about Keanu Reeves

When he was first becoming famous he almost changed his name.

In the 1980s, he was in a commercial for Coca-Cola.

Ali Wong said he was an obvious choice for his role in "Always Be My Maybe."

He's a motorcycle buff.

Reeves went uncredited as Ortiz the Dog Boy in the movie "Freaked."

He passed on "Speed 2" to play the titular character in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" at a theater in Winnipeg, Canada.

Reeves has said he doesn't believe William Shakespeare wrote his own works.

After his travel plans got disrupted in 2019, Reeves boarded a bus with his fellow travelers and played music for them.

If he could play any superhero, he said he would choose Wolverine.

He said legendary musician Alice Cooper has supposedly been his babysitter before.

Reeves was in a band that once opened for David Bowie.

He collects vintage typewriters.