Keanu Reevesis a lot of things - a wonderful human being,a charismatic screen presence, possibly immortal, and of course, an action movie legend. It’s the latter topic that he’s been reflecting on, by taking part inThe Art of Action,a YouTube series hosted by stunt guruScott Adkins.
Adkins recently starredalongside Reeves inJohn Wick: Chapter 4as the grotesque German assassin Killah, having a memorable fight scene in a bombastic nightclub, and the pair got together virtually to take a deep dive into Reeves' action career.
Stopping tochat aboutSpeed, theJan de Bontthriller from 1994 where Reeves starred as LAPD officer Jack Travenalongside a youngSandra Bullock, the actor admitted part of the appeal of doing the film was the nonsensical plot point of it, something which resonated with him in the wake of his previously successful action flick,Point Break.
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I’d just done a movie about bank robbing surfers and now I’m doing a movie about a bus that can’t go over 50mph? It was fun to get into and I liked that Jack Traven wanted to do good, like growing up he wanted to save people. When I was thinking aboutSpeed, I thought about SWAT guys and cut all my hair off and the people at the film were screaming at me ‘What have you done?!’
It was funny, I went and got that entire wardrobe myself. Working onSpeedgot me back into things I enjoyed like the weapons training, and I got to work with a really wonderful stunt coordinator there in Gary Hymes. At the time, the 105 freeway was being built so we had the whole thing to ourselves. We laid out the whole thing with Tonka Trucks, which was fun.
How Successful wasSpeed?
Speedwas a phenomenal success for both Reeves and 20th Century Fox, grossing $350.4 million off a budget around a tenth of that. Reeves participated wholeheartedly in the stunts for the film, including a very dangerous scene where he jumped from a moving Jaguar convertible into the bus.
The film featured an ensemble cast that included Reeves, Bullock,Joe Morton, Jeff Daniels, Alan Ruckand a delightfully unhingedDennis Hopperas the film’s villain. The movie received rave reviews and critical acclaim at the time of release. It is now considered one of the greatest action films ever made, with luminaries such asQuentin Tarantinodeclaring it one of the twenty best films he had seen between 1992 and 2009.
