Actor Keanu Reeves attends the John Wick: Chapter 4 UK Gala Screening in London in March 2023.GARETH CATTERMOLE/Getty Images
Be excellent to each other
Okay, so that’s actually a Bill line, not a Ted line. But Reeves took it to heart. He’s widely known as the nicest dude not just in Hollywood, but pretty much ever. Stories pop up constantly about his random acts of excellence, large and small: quietly donating tens of millions to pediatric cancer research; giving up his subway seat to a stranger; buying Rolexes for his John Wick stuntmen; organizing a van to take himself and a bunch of stranded fellow passengers to their final destination after an emergency landing. The best part is, you don’t have to be a rich actor (he made US$15 million for John Wick 4) to be excellent: Decency is free.
Go it alone
Reeves has a reputation as a loner, and his tragic history plays into that rep. In 1993, his best friend, River Phoenix, overdosed. Then, in 1999, Reeves and his girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, had a daughter who was stillborn. Two years later, Syme died in a car crash. For years, Reeves remained, publicly at least, single—and happily so, because alone does not equal lonely. “I take myself out to eat, I buy myself clothes. I have great times by myself,” he has said. “Once you know how to take care of yourself, company becomes an option and not a necessity.” (He is now dating the wonderfully age-appropriate artist Alexandra Grant.)
Rejection is liberation
This is a line from a movie (the forgettable romcom Destination Wedding), but Reeves has said something similar IRL, too: “There are seven billion people in the world. So when one of them behaves badly toward you, he’s actually doing you a great favour. Because he’s saving you time. He’s telling you that he’s not worth your while...I will now move on to the other 6,999,999,999 other people, some of whom may have some value.”
Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves.Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/The Associated Press
Be your own private Keanu
For years—decades, even—people believed he was a beautiful dummy, mostly because his breakout role, Ted Logan, wasn’t exactly a brain genius. (Ditto Tod in Parenthood, Marlon in I Love You to Death, Johnny in Point Break...the list goes on.) But that’s confusing the man with his oeuvre. Reeves doesn’t mind one bit, however, because his private self is nobody else’s business. “I’m Mickey Mouse,” he once told Vanity Fair. “They don’t know who’s inside the suit.” Does he come across as stunningly sincere during interviews? Yes. Does he bare his soul to the world? Absolutely not. And you don’t have to either, especially not on LinkedIn. (Seriously, please stop.)
The ones who love us will miss us
That was Reeves’s answer when asked by Stephen Colbert for his take on what happens after we die. He didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t need to. Your true legacy isn’t the work you produce—that’s not what’ll be remembered at your funeral. Our legacy is the love we inspire in our friends and family (and, in Reeves’s case, hundreds of millions of fans). In the corporate world, where workaholism can be seen as a virtue, it’s a good reminder that there are more important things than the bottom line. Yes way, dude.