In an interview with Esquire UK, The Lake House star Keanu Reeves opened up about what it’s like to be Keanu Reeves in 2017. He focused on life lessons learned when discussing his past failures (The Day the Earth Stood Still taught him that actors are “always fighting for a career”), mourned lost friends (he still misses friend and My Own Private Idaho costar River Phoenix “dearly”), discussed the possibility of having children (“I’m 52. I’m not going to have any kids.”), and responded to compliments about how “nice” he is by saying, in perfect Keanuian, “I’m just a normal guy, man.”
But my favorite thing about this interview, the part that reminded me of a conversation with a content 82-year-old retired person who still volunteers and/or has a part-time job, is when he gets into why he does what he does for a living. When asked if he enjoys preparing for a new role, Reeves said:
“Yeah. I don’t have anything better to do! I have nothing going on! I have no life! It’s just going to work and preparation.”
And then, near the end, there’s this:
“I’m every cliché,” Reeves tells me. “Fucking mortality. Ageing. I’m just starting to get better at it. Just the amount of stuff you have to do before you’re dead. I’m all of the clichés, and it’s embarrassing. It’s all of them. It’s just, ‘Oh my God. OK. Where did the time go? How come things are changing? How much time do I have left? What didn’t I do?’ I’m trying to think of the line from the sonnet… ‘And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er / The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan / Which I new pay as if not paid before’.
“So, yeah,” he smiles. “I’m that guy.”
The Hollywood Reporter published a lengthy piece about the state of Angelina Jolie’s career Thursday, and it can be summed up with this line: “There are signs that Jolie is no longer a negotiate-at-all-costs star to the studios.”
Basically, Jolie is either too difficult to work with when starring in a movie (she was booted from the upcoming tentpole Murder On the Orient Express for having too many notes about the script), or too unreliable at providing returns on a studio’s investment (By the Sea made $500,000 on a cost of $25 million).
Another film she’s been working on, Africa, “should have cost $60 million” but “grew to $130 million” because Jolie “wanted to do it big.” Unfortunately, the the project was temporarily scratched.
Writes THR, “Big, unfortunately, may no longer be an option if Jolie fails to make a savvy move for her next project.”
It’s like Keanu says: “You’re always fighting for a career.”
[THR]
Katy Perry is getting so political!
- Kanye’s next business venture: makeup. [TMZ]
- If I’m reading this Cindy Adams column right (there’s a good chance I’m not), Daniel Craig apparently has no interest in leaving Bond. [Page Six]
- It’s still blowing my mind that Amy Adams wasn’t nominated for Arrival. [Lainey Gossip]
- Sinead O’Connor took back that thing she said about Arsenio Hall that one time. [People]
- I HATE this relationship. I also HATE that she’s allowed to call herself just Cheryl. [People]