Facts about Keanu Reeves

You know Keanu Reeves as awesome characters like John Wick

Neil from The Matrix Trilogy, and Ted from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. But did you know that the real-life Keanu is even cooler than any of his characters

Today we're counting down the top 10 things that make Keanu Reeves awesome on this week's episode of Rankworthy

Back in 2010, when social media and memes were a relatively new thing

someone took a photograph of Keanu Reeves sitting alone on a bench, accompanied by nothing but a pigeon, and looking slightly forlorn

Naturally, they took the photo of solo Keanu eating a sandwich and posted it on the internet, sparking the sad Keanu meme

Photoshopped versions of the meme popped up all over Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit

but Keanu didn't harbor any hard feelings about it. During an Ask Me Anything Reddit session, he revealed that this was his first time being a meme

and even said he thought it was funny. Keanu's focus on artistic integrity is apparent

but it's still a very unusual thing for a big-name actor like himself to take a pay cut

in order to make each project the best it can be. In 1997, he most famously took a pay cut of a few million dollars

Yeah, we said million. In order for the producers of The Devil's Advocate to afford bringing on Al Pacino

Pacino's role made the film and it was hugely popular because of that move on Keanu's part

Likewise, during casting for The Replacements, Keanu took a 90% pay cut so the producers could bring on Gene Hackman

Keanu said in a 2003 interview that money was the last thing he thought about since he could live on what he makes for a few centuries

When a flight Keanu was on had to make an emergency landing in Bakersfield, California

guests were obviously rattled and concerned about making the two-hour trek from Bakersfield to Burbank

when their flight was originally scheduled to land Keanu made the best of a bad situation even conversing with airport staff to make sure everything went smoothly and was herded along with the rest of the flight passengers into vans On the way to Burbank Keanu couldn resist learning more about the small city and

interact with his fellow van riders, reciting facts about Bakersfield, and even playing songs

from a famous 50s country band that originated in Bakersfield. It's certain that the emergency

landing experience was frightening for the flight's passengers, but Keanu made it into an adventure

and a trip that everyone was certain to remember fondly. Keanu is not just an entertainer

Apart from starting his own charity that doesn't have his name attached to it, Keanu is generous with his resources and tries to spread the wealth around

Reeves made a total of $35 million on The Matrix when it came out, so when negotiating his profit-sharing contract for the sequels

it seems he wanted to pay it forward a bit. He chose to hand over some of his points to the franchise's special effects and costume design teams

effectively passing on around $75 million because he thought the people he worked with deserved it

Plenty of celebrities had used their clout to get better service or to get into places they typically wouldn't be allowed, but not Keanu Reeves

In 2014, Keanu arrived at a New York City club for the wrap party for his film Exposed

but the bouncer didn't recognize the star. Instead of making a scene and throwing out the infamous Do You Even Know Who I Am line

Keanu went to wait in line to get into the club. Keanu stood patiently in the rain until his two friends showed up, who then got him into the club

The chauffeur outside of the club noted that no one recognized him, and because he didn't act like

he had a lot of money or complain about being denied entrance, he looked ordinary, like a rock

and roller. Clearly, Keanu's mother taught him some manners. While Keanu is most likely to be

spotted riding his classic motorcycles or driving his Porsche there are times when the star takes public transportation like the rest of the population His net worth of million doesn deter him from making convenient public transportation trips but certainly he gets his space on the subway and

doesn't take to mingling with common folk, right? As we're sure you can guess based on the rest of

these Keanu anecdotes, this is far from true. In fact, Keanu was even caught on video giving up

his seat to a woman standing next to him. He had no qualms about riding the subway as a standing

passenger and this is definitely one of the reasons Keanu will warm your heart. A Redditor

shared a story online of Keanu's generosity and overall kind human nature when she posted about

a friend who got an unlikely ride one night. She says that her friend was driving on the highway

outside of LA when her jalopy broke down which caused her to be stranded on the side of the road

A man in a nice black Porsche pulled over and as you can guess it was Keanu. He offered to drive

her home when they towed her car and she accepted. Later finding out it was over 50 miles away from

his original destination. Keanu was a total gentleman on the drive and gave her his number

to call in case she needed further help before dropping her at her house. In a time when skeevy

stories run rampant about celebrity men using their power and fame to gain sexual favors from

women, this is a breath of fresh air. Some actors only read their lines in scripts

but Keanu Reeves isn't one of them. Keanu loves reading and is an avid reader. He's even completed

Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, a seven-volume saga that is 4,215 pages long

Scott Derrickson, director of The Day the Earth Stood Still, described Keanu as one of the

most voracious readers. Keanu has memorized the entirety of Shakespeare's 30th sonnet and turned out a role in the movie

Heat to take on a role in a theatre production of Hamlet in Canada In a Details Magazine interview he was assigned to take the interviewer somewhere that he loved and he chose of course a bookstore Keanu Reeves is a nice guy but that doesn mean

he doesn't know how to have fun. Keanu was known for being a high-intensity thrill-seeker, and some

of his thrills have gotten him incredibly injured. He once took a demon ride, which is where you ride

a motorcycle without headlights, and things ended in a particularly grueling accident when he slammed

into the side of a mountain in Topanga Canyon, California. He was hospitalized for a week with broken ribs and a ruptured spleen

and if that doesn't sound bad enough, one of the paramedics also dropped the stretcher

as they were loading him into the ambulance. That's gotta hurt. He's come off his motorcycle a few other times

leaving him with a broken ankle and a large scar on his right leg. He also has veneers on all of his teeth from a separate accident

during which he thinks he slammed his head into the handlebars. But he still manages to get his work done

The night before he filmed a kissing scene for the movie A Walk in the Clouds, he took a hockey puck to the face and required six stitches

but he still showed up to set the next day, because of course he did. Speaking of hockey, Keanu is an avid fan

Though he was born in Beirut, Lebanon, he grew up in Toronto, leading to a life glued to a puck and stick

When he moved to LA at 20 years old, in the days before he became a well-known movie star

he met a few strangers at a gas station. He noticed that they had hockey equipment in their car

and because he was new to the city, he asked what they were doing. They replied that they were playing street hockey

and he asked if he could join. They invited him to play with them and it started a game every weekend

Over the next decade, Keanu's acting career took off and he became rather famous

but he still played street hockey with those guys every weekend. He said they would take holidays

and sometimes summers off, but that the game lasted for 10 years, which as he says

was cool to be a part of. We assume those guys felt the same