Watch Keanu Reeves' Journey to Action Star in RARE Interviews (ET Vault Unlocked)

Tonight, Keanu Reeves. Isn't that fun? Never-before-seen interviews spanning four decades. Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. From his showbiz start. Who's your coach? My dad. To his first time on ET. I can't wait to see it, you know? Plus, the role that changed his life. What? ET was behind the scenes of all his blockbusters. Phew. Bill and Ted. Excellent! Point break. Ah! Speed. I think we've destroyed eight cameras, is it? The Matrix. I trained for about four months. And more. I guess I'm a little speechless. Plus, why everyone loves Keanu. He's a nice guy in the world. One of the most caring, hardworking people I've ever worked with. That's Keanu, ladies and gentlemen. Keanu Reeves. ET Vault Unlocked, Keanu Reeves starts now. Am I blushing? I think I'm blushing. From point break to speed, buckle up for Keanu's excellent ET adventure. Welcome, everybody, to Entertainment Tonight. Yes, the internet's boyfriend is a man of many talents, not to mention beloved by all his co-stars. So we're diving deep into the archives to celebrate Keanu, the humble hero. I hope something gets out there that is magic. You know, and if not, I'll just be sad and cry. I mean, I'm not looking for any one part. I'm interested in variety. Well, Keanu has mastered the Hollywood Matrix. The skilled musician and actor can tackle any film genre, from animated, like his latest, Sonic 3. You're a colorful bunch. To action, romance, comedy, and... Reciting Shakespeare to the entire crew. I am not a man of many words, but I thank you. So what else makes Keanu King? Pretty much everything. I have... I had a pretty, pretty big, healthy crush on the guy. I had a big, healthy crush on you, too. Oh, it's still, it's still raging. He's the least judgmental person I've ever met. Keanu's very tall, much taller than I realized, and he is one of the most disciplined, caring, hardworking people I've ever worked with. I've been told by many of our mutual friends that he's the nicest guy in the world. He's amazing, he's the nicest guy. It's the truth. Keep going, yes. I know, I could, I could. I could spend a good 20 minutes right here. But Mr. Nice Guy also has a need for speed. Keanu Reeves goes for a slide. He made his pro racing debut at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in October, and he knows his way around the bike. We caught Keanu cruising up to Robert Downey Jr.'s wedding in 2005, and there's no depths this diehard won't go to for a role, like turning full samurai for 47 Ronin. Come up and down. Yeah, I did some training, and then the director wanted us to do Japanese versions of the scenes. Some of the wasabi right now. The year after Speed, Keanu rode the bus from Denver to St. Paul just to make feeling Minnesota feel more believable. My character rides on a bus, and it's only about, what, 24 hours, 22 hours of traveling. Are you critical of yourself? I'm a Virgo. Are you really hard on yourself? I'm a Virgo. Virgos are critical of themselves. Yes, Keanu's relatability makes him the perfect muse for me. I admire who he is as a person, and I think if I really didn't admire who he was, I don't think I could have the affection for him that I do. So where did it all start? In commercials, fresh-faced and enthusiastic, Keanu starred in ads for Corn Flakes and Coca-Cola. Who's your coach? My dad. When you decided to be an actor, I don't know how young that was for you. 15. 15, okay. I've always wanted to do different kinds of roles. Basically, I wanted to do everything. Right. I wanna do everything. Yeah. If I can. And his first ET interview, that was 1985. I haven't seen it. I can't wait to see it, you know? The actor was just 20 years old and wrapping up the TV movie, Young Again. I'm a kid. Keanu played a 40-year-old businessman stuck in the body of a teenager. He was going by KC back then, short for Keanu Charles. I can feel it. I mean, I'm having fun, and I can, it feels real. We played back that interview for him almost 30 years later. Oh my gosh. Oh, I remember that shirt. That was a big break for me. You know, I grew up in Toronto, Canada, and I wanted to act in films and go to Hollywood, and I got to play a lead in an American movie of the week. It helped me get an agent in Hollywood. Wild stallion! His even bigger break came in 1989 with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I am Ted of San Dimas. I enjoyed the character. I thought it was really kind of a great, goofy movie. Keanu and co-star Alex Winter's slacker chemistry, combined with some pretty epic lines. Party on, dudes! Turned them into overnight sensations. You see the kids, like, going, you know, and they go, dude, you know, and it's just a boo, I guess. And it's cool. I kind of had him in my body for a long time. Ted, I'm feeling blue. Where are you? Dude, don't be down. It's all OK. Two years later, E.T. was on set of the sequel, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. We're 21 now. Basically, there's this bad guy named DeNomelos in the future who wants to change the past so that the present, his present, which is our future, will be different. Credits roll. It's really good. E.T. watched another bromance blossom in Hawaii. That's where Keanu learned to surf for his first action film, Point Break, with Patrick Swayze. When I found out that I was going to be playing the part, I went to Kauai for a week and chased the surf there. I got slammed. Want to know who this is? This is Johnny Utah. A behind-the-scenes secret, Patrick told us Keanu wasn't the first choice to play the undercover agent. Looked like it was going to be me and Charlie Sheen. Would you ever see yourself as an action adventure kind of guy? Sure, definitely. Five years later, Keanu hit the gas on his action ambitions with speed, and he took E.T. along for the ride. I've leapt from at around 45 miles an hour from a car, a Jaguar, whose door was ripped off into the front doors of a bus. I guess about maybe 5 and 1⁄2 feet across. I've also got to drive very fairly quickly, like 50 miles an hour, in and out of traffic. Why did I take this job? Yeah, I think we've destroyed eight cameras, is it? In the attempt to really involve the audience in the action, and then we got a bus with a bomb on it. Two people stuck on a subway train that they can't stop. Did you have a lot of preparation, a lot of training before this film? I had about seven weeks of weight lifting, and then I did about a month and a half of gymnastics. I took gymnastics to try and get to know my body better. Keanu did most of his own stunts, even trading in his long hair for this signature buzz. My hair was about this long when I first met with Yonda Bond, the director. The next day, I'm shaved. I walk in, and Yonda's like, what have you done? Add the chemistry between Keanu and Sandra Bullock in her breakout role, and you've got one of the highest-grossing films of 1994. That's Keanu, ladies and gentlemen, Keanu Reeves. I like him, he's a good kid. Yeah, I had a great kid. He's a sweet gal. Oh, and also they, oh, should I say, you have a kiss. Whatever you say, ma'am. To fall in love with Sandra Bullock is not very difficult. It was a good day. Another good day? When Keanu got the role of Neo in The Matrix after contending with a handful of Hollywood megastars, including Brad Pitt, Will Smith, and Johnny Depp. All I'm offering is the truth, nothing more. Action hero, Keanu Reeves. How do you feel about that? After this movie, my gosh. Can I be a drum action hero, maybe, for this film? Drum action instead of action, if we're gonna use, you know, slogans. Whoa. Action. It does have heart and soul and compassion. Oh, and the fighting. I trained for, I guess, about four months. Right now, you're on the ship. This is a rebel craft called the Nebuchadnezzar. Of course, E.T. was on location in Sydney, Australia in 1998, getting a firsthand look at everything, from the props. Fire it, would you? To the set, which was still getting the finishing touches. Getting there, though. Machine, they wanted it to look like raindrops on a window. Iconic scenes like this change the game for special effects and filmmaking. Neo's gravity-defined, bullet-dodging moment was created using around 100 cameras to make it feel like time was slowing down. And when it came to the sequels, you know they kicked it up a notch. It pushes you to your limits, to my limits, at least. What about injuries? Just minor aches and cuts and, you know, ice baths at night. After take 72 of Kung Fu, you know, ice is good. The Matrix reloaded, and the Matrix revolutions were filmed simultaneously. Shooting took around 22 months. Did you lose a lot of weight, or did you change your physique in any way? It was kind of like a Neo diet, you know. Which consists of? Oatmeal and egg whites and steamed fish. From Los Angeles to Cannes to London to Tokyo, E.T. was there as the movies premiered around the world. In total, the four-film franchise has grossed nearly 1.5 billion at the box office. If you had the choice of taking the blue or the red pill, which one would you take? I'll take the red pill. Why? Because more stuff happens. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, agonies and ecstasies. ♪ Push, push, I wanna see it ♪ I was like hanging around, and got this call, and Paula Abdul, you wanna do a video, and they had a cool premise, and kind of like, yeah. The year, 1991. Keanu, fresh off the success of Bill and Ted, was cast in Paula Abdul's Rush, Rush music video, an homage to the James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause. Paula giving us this behind-the-scenes visual. I hadn't met him yet. He had his own trailer, walked up the steps, knocked on the door, and the door was cracked open, and he had headphones on, and he was air guitaring full-on in his underwear, and I just was like, okay, I'm gonna back up. She's like, back it on up for a second. But look, that tracks, because even back then, Keanu was all about that rock star life. ♪ Trying to live life ♪ I don't sing in the band, no. I play in a band, and so I play electric bass. People tend to have a good time at our shows, Keanu's band, Dogstar, has been making music together since 1991. Robert Mailhouse is on drums, and Brett Dumrose is the lead singer. As for the name? We got it from a book, a Henry Miller book. I met Keanu in a Mayfair market. I was buying groceries, and I had a hockey jersey on, and we ended up playing ice hockey, and then just playing music together. ♪ Everything turns around ♪ It's a double-edged sword having Keanu Reeves in the band. It's crazy, it's nutty. And it ruffles people's feathers to think someone can do two things with their life. I mean, I'm an actor, so that's the bottom line. Sometimes you act like a bass player. And sometimes I act like a bass player. Dogstar took a hiatus in 2002, as Keanu was riding the massive wave of The Matrix. But they reunited in 2022, and dropped their third album last year. So what's the ultimate goal with the band? What's the goal? The ultimate goal. No, as long as we get to keep making records, and we keep wanting to make records, and we get to remain friends and everything, it's a good life. It's a good life, for sure. How's the love life? What's going on, Keanu? Am I blushing? I think I'm blushing. Um, how do I say this nicely? None of anyone's business. I don't answer personal questions. I kind of, that's kind of my modus operandi. Because I, I mean, who cares? Yeah, Keanu has always been fiercely private. But today, he's not afraid of a little PDA. That's the star snuggling up to his partner of five years, artist Alexandra Grant. You know, it's just, you can't, you can't order that up. You know, you have to find the magic. Believe it or not, Keanu's never been married. Despite his It Girl co-stars and love scene so real, they sent the rumor mill into overdrive. I think he's pretty hot for the screen. I think women are definitely taken by him. What do you think of him? Fine! There's all these girls, like 14-year-old girls who are like out of their minds. A year after Speed, our cameras captured the fan frenzy on set of Feeling Minnesota, and the aftermath of this steamy hookup with co-star Cameron Diaz. We didn't really kiss, we more hit home base. Things got even hotter in 1997's The Devil's Advocate with a then 22-year-old Charlize Theron. Yep, they both bared it all. The butt shot gets me. That's just embarrassing. And when they re-teamed nearly four years later for Sweet November, a few scenes were even deleted to avoid an R rating. So are we gonna see you guys in a movie together again? Sure, I'll do it. Do I have to twist your arm? Absolutely not. The two never confirmed a romance, but you cannot deny that chemistry, or his connection with Sandra Bullock. 12 years after Speed, they locked lips again in The Lake House. You waited. How was it kissing again? It was like coming home. We kept in touch over the years. With letters and dinners. It just works with him, and I don't know why. Turns out, that spark we saw on set in 1993 was very real. Advent! I think of how handsome he was. Did y'all get together? Did you date him? Never dated him. Did you know that she had a crush on you? No? She obviously didn't know I had a crush on her either. Oh, wow. Everybody always wants to know if you guys are getting together for another Speed movie. Oh my gosh, no, I think that bus is left. When hell freezes over is something that just immediately comes to mind. Speed 3, when hell freezes over. Now we know Keanu isn't against a good revival. Do you know what I'm talking about? The Matrix. While he shut down any possible hope for a fourth Matrix film in 2003. My story is told. Neo was brought back to life 18 years later in The Matrix Resurrections. I remember this. What was it like for you two when you got the phone call? It came out of the blue, and it was quite shocking. Also shocking, a Bill and Ted reunion after nearly 30 years. Party on, dudes. The third adventure was partially made possible thanks to the massive success of John Wick. Keanu's debut as a retired assassin raked in 86 million at the box office, about four times its production budget. Time flies when you're having fun, and the first John Wick changed my life. In October, the franchise celebrated its 10th anniversary. E.T. was with the then 49-year-old on the New York set at the very beginning. In this project, I got a lot of training with the jiu-jitsu and judo, and got to do some driving. There's car food, gun food. Even Halle Berry knew she had to bring her butt whoop in A-game when she joined the cast in 2019. I've done action movies, and then I've done John Wick. I worked six months, probably almost five days a week in training, two, three hours. Those who cling to death live. Do you have more in you for the franchise? Ah! You know, when you love something, you always have a little bit more. Describe the rest of your life in five words. Health, love, friendship, create art, motorcycles. Keanu Reeves with that six-word response to Stephen Colbert. We're gonna leave you now with a few more gems from Keanu that you never heard before. Take care, y'all. Goodnight. You're an athlete, right? Yeah, I don't know about that. Okay, I'll take athletic. Here comes Falco. In 1999, E.T. met Keanu, the quarterback, as he filmed The Replacements. Got as many of the NFL films that I could get my hands on. Steve Young, Terry Bradshaw, those kinds of guys. I just wanna play. I can't let you play. And yes, it was Keanu who helped usher Michael B. Jordan into Hollywood in Hardball. We met MBJ at the premiere of his first movie in 2001 when he was just 14 years old. It's a good story for kids and adults, both alike. It's like, that was a strong message. A couple of kids had seen some films that I'd been in and were, you know, they really liked The Matrix. I heard they were relentless about The Matrix. Sometimes, but it was just, it was nice. Give me a high five!