Keanu Reeves Thinks About Death “All The Time” (Oh, and He Wrote a Novel)

Actor Keanu Reeves is making the rounds to media outlets all over the United States to promote his latest project — and it’s not a new movie. The star of the “Speed,” “John Wick,” and “The Matrix” franchises has co-written his first novel, a science fiction saga entitled The Book of Elsewhere. 

But nevermind that Reeves is a movie star who’s written a novel, or that he’s actually authored a 12-issue comic series (who knew?), or that his book is about a fierce, yet lonely, 80,000-year-old immortal warrior saddled with a “curse of violence.” What’s snagging the headlines following Reeves’ press interviews is what he has to say on the subject of death.

All about death

Last week, BBC News published an article about the novel entitled, “Keanu Reeves: I Think About Death All The Time.” This is how that article begins:

Many of us avoid thinking about death, but not Keanu Reeves.

“I’m 59, so I’m thinking about death all the time,” the Hollywood megastar has revealed to BBC News.

That’s a good thing, he adds.

“Hopefully it’s not crippling, but hopefully it’s sensitized [us] to an appreciation of the breath we have, and the relationships that we have the potential to have.”

As it turns out, The Book of Elsewhere actually has an interesting death-adjacent theme running throughout its storyline. The aforementioned warrior, named simply “B,” is half-mortal and half-god and cannot die. Except, he wants to die, so he makes a deal with the U.S. military so they can help him “solve the mystery of his existence.”  B is also the main character in Reeves’ comic book series, BRZRKR (pronounced “berserker”), which, according to The New York Times, has sold more than two million copies. 

Violence abounds

Although the comic books and the novel were actually penned by British science fiction author China Miéville, both are the brainchildren of Reeves, who imagined what would happen if one couldn’t die. He told the Times that he fleshed out the premise after asking himself a series of “what if” questions. Reeves worked closely with Miéville, a sci-fi and fantasy writer, throughout the creation process, providing  feedback and suggestions as the comics and novel developed. 

In his interviews with both The New York Times and BBC News, Reeves was asked about the excessive violence that pervades these storylines. In the novel, main character B “is freakishly strong, able to rip people’s arms off and punch through their chests.”

“I think it was influenced by some of the action films that I had done,” Reeves told the BBC, referring, perhaps, to movies like “John Wick” which is simply a series of violent deaths committed by Reeves’ character, Wick.

Mirroring life

In the BRZRKR comics, the illustration of the character of B actually resembles Reeves, with his long dark hair and goatee. The BBC also brings up another characteristic of Reeves that seems to be reflected in the novel: his “difficult personal life.”

HuffPost recently explored this similarity, focusing on the many losses Reeves has experienced throughout his life, including the deaths of friends, his girlfriend, and a stillborn daughter.

In 1993, Reeves’ close friend, actor River Phoenix, died of a drug overdose outside Johnny Depp’s Viper Room nightclub in Los Angeles. He was only 23 years old. Phoenix and Reeves had only two years earlier appeared together in the movie “My Own Private Idaho.”

In 1999, the baby girl of Reeves and his girlfriend Jennifer Syme was delivered stillborn, one month before her due date. Syme’s devastating postpartum depression contributed to the couple’s breakup just weeks later. The two remained very close friends, however. Sadly, Syme also died in a tragic drunk driving accident in 2001 after leaving a party at rocker Marilyn Manson’s house.

Reeves also served as caretaker for her sister, Kim, after she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1991. Years into her 10-year battle, which she courageously survived, Reeves created a private nonprofit organization that helps fund children’s hospitals and cancer research.

The actor who talks about death

Reeves’s generosity has been widely publicized, as has his “gentle, mild-mannered persona,” which has earned him the title of “the nicest man in Hollywood.”

Now, Reeves seems to be taking on a new honorific: The celebrity who talks most often and openly about death and grief.

His current The Book of Elsewhere press tour is far from the first time Reeves has shared his thoughts on dying and dealing with personal loss. In 2006, he talked about Syme’s and his daughter’s deaths with Parade, saying that much of his “appreciation of life has come through loss.”

“Grief changes shape, but it never ends,” he said. “People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, ‘It’s gone, and I’m better.’ They’re wrong. All you can do is hope that grief will be transformed and, instead of feeling pain and confusion, you will be together in memory, that there will be solace and pleasure there, not just loss.”

Later, in a 2019 appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” to promote his third “John Wick” movie, Reeves was asked by Colbert, “What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?”

Reeves replied, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.”

Death, Elsewhere

As he talked with the Times about the violence and other themes within BRZRKR and Elsewhere, Reeves again delved deep into his opinions about death.

“It surprised me in the creative act, what gets revealed to oneself,” he said. “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.”

“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. Maybe I wonder about the world, you know, how did we get here, who are we.

“I wonder about technology. I wonder about this kind of extinction motive that it seems the species has. I don’t know why we’re in such a rush to get off the planet and become digitized. Maybe I wonder about love. And the power of it. Why is death so strong and love so frail, and yet it’s the strongest force on the planet? So, I like to think about those things, and I thought maybe I found that they could come out in a comic book.”