While most know that Keanu Reeves is one of the most successful actors in Hollywood, not many know he has lived one of the most tragic off-screen lives.
When Keanu was only 3-years-old, his father left his family. Keanu then spent his teen years at four different high schools while battling dyslexia.
He did eventually graduate but in the process, lost his best friend at the young age of 23 to a drug overdose.
He additionally lost his first child to a miscarriage and the love of his life, to a car accident.
His sister was then diagnosed with leukemia.
Keanu’s sister eventually recovered, and the now 54-year-old actor has dedicated his life to help others ever since.
Reddit user, bo2dd2, shared on such story of kindness imparted by Keanu:
“Back in the late 90s and fresh out of college I got my first job as an assistant prop designer on the set of Chain Reaction (Keanu was a supporting actor with Morgan Freeman).”
“Every day for the last few weeks of filming, Keanu treated the stage hands and ‘grunt workers’ (including myself) by taking us out for free breakfast and lunch. He was genuinely a very nice guy to work with.”
“Since then, I’ve worked on about 30 different sets and have never met an actor as generous and friendly as him. Most actors I’ve seen and worked with are total [expletive] who always think they are better than us. Keanu on the other hand, at the very least, was socially approachable and definitely kindhearted.”
And the above story is just one of hundreds – but Keanu is not the kind to make his humble helping hand known to the public.
According to Snopes, in 2009 he told the Ladies’ Home Journal:
“I have a private foundation that’s been running for five or six years, and it helps aid a couple of children’s hospitals and cancer research. I don’t like to attach my name to it; I just let the foundation do what it does.”
Reeves has also donated to SCORE (Spinal Cord Opportunities for Rehabilitation Endowment) a charity that was founded after a ULCA hockey player’s spinal cord was crushed in a post-season game.
But the quiet generosity does not come to a surprise after learning this same man gave up a sizable potion of his proceeds from the Matrix trilogy back to the franchise to fund the costume and special effects teams.
Reeves has also negotiated a pay cut on the films “The Devil’s Advocate” as well as “The Replacements” so the projects could hire big name stars Al Pacino and Gene Hackman.
Keanu has shared in the past how he does not believe money equates with happiness.
“For me, I guess I don’t connect the enjoyment and the money,” he shared in 2000 with the New York Post. “I work on a part and hopefully realize a part, and make good films. Some of the successes I’ve had I’m grateful for, because it creates other opportunities. [The way] I look at it is I get to act again.”
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