Quote Of The Day: Keanu Reeves On Death And Love

Audiences might know Keanu Reeves best as the unstoppable hitman in the “John Wick” franchise, or as hacker Neo in “The Matrix,” but the Hollywood icon also has a melancholic introspective side that is often overshadowed by his blockbuster work. He got his start in the mid-1980s in smaller comedies and crime dramas before breaking out as a lovably dumb time traveler in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” which led to two sequels and two short-lived TV shows that everyone forgot about. 

Reeves’ filmography is littered with Hollywood classics, whether it’s “Point Break,” “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” or Constantine.” Because of this, he doesn’t have as many major TV credits compared to other stars. But Reeves had a surprising role in “Severance” Season 2 at the Lumon building, and voiced a pilot in the “Armored Core” episode of Prime Video’s animated video game series, “Secret Level.” The star is also executively producing the “John Wick: Under the High Table” spinoff series, so he’s not exactly short of work. Reeves is even set to receive the Legend of Cinema award at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, which is why he’s today’s quote of the day.

“Why is death so strong and love so frail, and yet it’s the strongest force on the planet?”

The above quote comes from Keanu Reeves’ 2024 interview with The New York Times ahead of the release of his first book, “The Book of Elsewhere,” which he co-wrote with British author China Miéville. It’s a spinoff from the actor’s comic series, “BRZRKR,” in which his likeness is used for an immortal warrior — and yes, a live-action movie is in the works at Netflix.

But while the comics are a blood-soaked rampage across the world, “The Book of Elsewhere” is set in an alternate universe, where the same character tries to figure out the root of his immortality. For Reeves, he found the writing process to be incredibly revealing about himself.

“Maybe the creative act is a kind of talking, you know. And so maybe I have father issues and mother issues. And maybe I think about death,” he explained. “Maybe I don’t understand the violence of the world. I don’t understand that we all know we’re going to die, and we kill each other over things that are, perhaps as you look back at them, not so important.”

It feels entirely on brand that Keanu Reeves made a poignant observation about death and love while talking about writing an immortal warrior in his book. But his quote does draw an interesting contrast between two of the biggest concepts that humanity deals with on a daily basis. His point is that yes, love is frail and can be easily hurt by any number of things, but the reason love hurts is because it’s so powerful.

So death’s impact on love is only so strong because love makes us feel an immeasurable amount of emotion. It’s not just romantic love either — platonic and familial love can make us feel incredibly fulfilled in life, so when that’s taken away by death, it leaves such a painful void. The “John Wick” star is no stranger to loss: His best friend River Phoenix died from an overdose at The Viper Room in 1993. Six years later, his long-term girlfriend Jennifer Syme gave birth to their stillborn daughter Ava in 1999, before sadly dying in a car accident in 2001.

Reeves briefly reflected on grief when speaking to the Guardian ahead of “John Wick: Chapter 3” in 2019, saying: “It’s about the love of the person you’re grieving for, and any time you can keep company with that fire, it is warm. I absolutely relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it. Grief and loss, those are things that don’t ever go away. They stay with you.”

• “I think, like in the stories that we tell, there is an aspect of the living life informing where we go. A transfiguration, there must be. Energy can’t be created or destroyed, and energy flows. It must be in a direction, with some kind of internal, emotive, spiritual direction. It must have some effect somewhere … I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.” — from a 2005 interview with TODAY

• “I had the classic 40 meltdown … But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness. It was also the end of the projection of my younger self. I came to the place where I thought, ‘I don’t know where I am anymore but where have I come from and what am I doing?'” — from a 2012 interview with the Independent