MANIC FANS DRIVE KEANU AWAY

Shy Hollywood hunk Keanu Reeves had to flee a nightclub after screaming fans drove him away after he performed a gig. The reclusive star was playing bass guitar at the infamous Viper Room nightclub in Los Angeles with his band Becky, but his attempts to remain anonymous failed.

One reveler says, "Everyone was really into the band and it wasn't until a couple of songs in that people started to notice who the bass player was.

"Keanu was immediately surrounded by fawning girls. He was polite but seemed to be getting flustered by all the gushing and cooing over him."

Keanu beat a retreat through an emergency door.

On the Set of 'Constantine'

Tue, Mar 02, 2004, 01:03 PM PT
By Vanessa Sibbald

The line between fantasy and reality blurs a bit when group of journalists are invited to visit the set of Keanu Reeves' latest action film, "Constantine," based on the DC/Vertigo comic book "Hellblazer." Arriving at Los Angeles Abbey Memorial Park, located in the heart of Compton, one feels transported to the days when Los Angeles liked to splurge on its buildings, making them as beautiful and intricate as old medieval Europe. Looking less like a cemetery than an Islamic church, the tiled building, with Spanish-style iron works inside, carved limestone and colorful stained glass windows has been converted for the film into a cramped Reliquary housing religious relics from all over the world -- including a Nazi swastika, a Buddha, and an Egyptian statue that stands about 20-feet tall.

The set is the lair of Papa Midnite, a crime lord and voodoo king, played by Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou ("In America"), who helps Constantine find an electric chair that doubles as a portal to hell.

But let's backtrack a bit. The character of Constantine was created by Alan Moore in 1985 in an issue of "The Swamp Thing" series before "Hellblazer" became a series in its own right two years later with British writer Jamie Delano at the helm. Since then it has become the longest, continuous title of DC's edgy Vertigo imprint. The comic books tells the story of John Constantine, a cynical, irreverent, British mage, con artist or thief (take your pick) with a close physical resemblance to Sting (who the character was physically modeled on, much like Anne Rice's vampire Lestat). Despite the fact that he's a drunk, a womanizer and a total bastard, Constantine sees himself as humanity's knight in shining amour -- one of the few who stand between humankind and the horrors of the supernatural world.

On this particular day, Hounsou and star Keanu Reeves are shooting the scene where Constantine enters Midnite's home for the first time. Hounsou is Mack Daddy'd out in a red crushed velvet trench coat over a brown corduroy suit complete with a '70s-patterned shirt, snakeskin books and a straw hat dyed red. Reeves, meanwhile, is more pared down, wearing a simple black suit with a white shirt (hmmm ... how Agent Smith), holding Constantine's gold "Holy Shotgun" -- an invention of the screen, not the comic book

The adaptation, directed by first-time feature film director Francis Lawrence, takes away Constantine's British accent and blond hair, but leaves his sharp wit and dark world view, giving the film a film noir feel perhaps tailor made for "Matrix" star Reeves, who might just be turning into our generation's king of gloom. But Lawrence sees Constantine as a different role than Reeves has ever played onscreen, and one a lot closer to his real personality.

"I think Keanu actually has a lot of John Constantine in him," mulls Lawrence. "Keanu is kind of a haunted guy and he's sort of elusive and mysterious. He's had some sort of tragic things happen to him and I think he sort of lives that life a little bit. He's also, I would say, a little self-destructive, which I think Constantine is."

One of the challenges for the film is keeping it PG-13, despite it's dark theme, but producer Lauren Shuler Donner doesn't think that's going to be too much of a problem, although she does admit that his swearing had to be cleaned up a bit.

"We're keeping his attitude, he has a really lousy attitude," she smiles. "So, we're trying to keep as true to the comic as possible, but without the swearing. The violence is there, but it won't be gratuitous. There's a restriction in terms of blood, red blood really, so if there's any blood, it's very dark [and] he still gives the Devil the finger."

Lawrence adds that nothing was cut out of the script yet by the studio in order to get the rating: "I'll use the movie 'Jacob's Ladder' as a reference in that way that it's what you don't see, and things that are hidden in the shadows," he says.

The script teams our dark hero with skeptical policewoman Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) to solve the mysterious suicide of her twin sister (also played by Weisz). Their investigation takes them through the world of demons and angels that exists just beneath the landscape of contemporary Los Angeles, where they get caught in a catastrophic series of otherworldly events that leads them straight to hell. Running parallel to Constantine's story, is the story of a young boy called the Scavenger, who inadvertently finds a relic, the Spear of Destiny, which possesses him and sends him on a mission that will eventually collide with Constantine's.

"[The Scavenger] sets the premise of what's to come -- up until that point, everything been pretty kind of scoring points, earning his way up to Heaven. Once I find the Spear of Destiny, it's kind of the piece of the puzzle that gets everything going and sends it to another level," actor Jesse Ramirez hints about the nature of his character.

Wearing a haircut that looks like it was done by a very upset, blind hairdresser using extra sharp scissors, Ramirez wears yellow and red contact lenses, fake teeth and a fair about of makeup to play his character -- and that's before he becomes possessed or "demonized."

"It kind of looks like I have hepatitis, maybe," he laughs. "I don't look very demonized; it's very subtle I think."

Weaving no red carpet spells

March 5, 2004

Bankable ... Hugo Weaving.

Hugo Weaving, star of The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings trilogies, is one of the most bankable stars in the film industry. But while his co-stars and countrymen celebrated at last weekend's Oscars ceremony, he was determined to stay well away from Hollywood.

'It's a tough one," says Hugo Weaving. "If it came down to a fight, I'm not sure who'd win." He is debating the fighting prowess of his two best-known screen incarnations: Agent Smith, the indestructible, suit-and-sunglasses-wearing baddie from The Matrix films, and the noble Elrond, the elf king from The Lord of the Rings. He's not talking about the characters themselves, but the plastic action figures that have sold in their thousands all over the world.

"Elrond," he observes, "slashes his sword up and down if you squeeze his little legs together." Agent Smith, on the other hand, simply wields a pistol at the end of an outstretched arm.

"Elrond's got the movable pieces. And he's also bigger," Weaving says, after due consideration. "Smith, on the other hand, has got a gun. But then, Elrond's immortal..."

Whatever the fighting capabilities of his miniature plastic alter-egos, Weaving's place in action film history is assured. He is part of a wave of Australian actors who have made a huge impact in Hollywood recently, including Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe. Over the past five years, the 43-year-old actor has starred in six of the most profitable films of all time - The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix trilogies. Last year, films that starred Weaving made pounds 1.2 billion worldwide, making him, according to some reports, "the most bankable star in Hollywood".

Quirkily handsome, he is dressed informally in faded jeans and a blue T-shirt, his shoulder-length hair swept back from an expansive forehead, and he sports a thick beard. The spectacular back-to-back success of The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings films, has not, he insists, changed him at all.

"The money's been good, but I still take the kids to school in the morning and do a big supermarket shop on Mondays. I choose not to have a publicist or a bodyguard or a personal assistant. Some actors live in such incredibly rarefied worlds that they forget how to take responsibility for themselves."

Weaving abhors the Hollywood movie-making machine and categorically rules out a move to Los Angeles. He is passionate about supporting Australia's film industry and disapproves of America's cultural dominance.

"There's too much crap being made in Hollywood. The film world is full of garbage," he says. "I don't want to live in a world where all the films come out of Los Angeles."

As an actor with a global profile, he knows he has to play the game - attending premieres and so on - but it is something he does with deep reluctance. Even though The Return of the King swept the board at Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, winning 11 Oscars, Weaving, unlike many of his co-stars, did not attend.

"The whole red carpet thing, that's a side of the industry I cannot bear. Everything has to be sold, everything has to be hyped, money becomes the key. You end up becoming a product yourself. I don't want that. I just want to be an actor who's also a human being."

Weaving is polite to a fault, attentive and down-to-earth. He doesn't give interviews but, after two-and-a-quarter hours, he is still happily chatting away.

He lives with his wife, artist Katrina Greenwood, in one of Sydney's smartest suburbs. His children, Harry, 15, and Holly, 11, go to a local school and remain unfazed by their father's celebrity.

There may be no skeletons in his cupboard, but there is a sword under his couch, which he was given on completion of the The Lord of the Rings series. "They presented all the actors with gifts at the end: a helmet, a dress, or whatever. I got a sword. I've no idea what I'm going to do with it. It will probably stay under the couch for ever. But it could be handy if there's a burglary."

Like the sword, its owner will stay in Sydney for the foreseeable future. Weaving's desire to remain rooted in Australia is born out of a childhood marked by regular upheaval. His father's job as a seismologist with an oil company meant a change of country every few years.

Hugo Wallace Weaving was born in Nigeria in 1960. Soon afterwards, the family moved to England and, at the age of 10 (after spells in Melbourne and Sydney), he was sent as a boarder to the Downs, a private school outside Bristol.

"It was like a prep school version of the Lindsay Anderson film If," he says. "When I see that film, it brings back all these memories. I was a prefect at the age of 13 and I remember wandering around at night, turning the lights out in the dormitories and listening to seven-year-old boys crying with their teddies. "Rugby was compulsory. We played every single day, in snow, sleet or hail. I loved it, though."

Weaving's interest in acting was encouraged by a young English teacher at his next school, Queen Elizabeth Hospital School, also in Bristol. He made his stage debut as a 15-year-old in a compilation of skits called A Victorian Evening. A year later, his family moved back to Sydney, and Weaving finished off his schooling at a posh local grammar school. At the time, he felt "entirely English" and came in for the usual "whingeing Pom" jibes from his classmates.

He soon lost his English accent, enrolled at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and spent most of the Eighties appearing in plays and television mini-series in Australia. In 1994, he landed the role of an insecure drag queen in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, alongside Terence Stamp, which brought him to an international audience for the first time. But the phone call that propelled him into the big league came in 1998, when he was asked to audition for the part of Agent Smith, Keanu Reeves's snarling, computer-generated nemesis in the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix.

"I was working in London and my agent rang from Sydney to tell me about this new film. He said it was a big-budget, science fiction thing. I said I really wasn't interested; it didn't sound like my kind of film at all. Then I saw Bound, the Wachowskis' previous film, which I really liked, so I got the script and thought the character was pretty interesting. Then I flew to LA to meet Larry and Andy [Wachowski] and I thought they were great."

Months of gruelling training followed, and the fight scenes with Reeves left Weaving bloodied and bruised. He sustained a serious hip injury that almost required surgery. "Initially, Keanu and I would train as if it were a ballet, practising our punches. But when it came down to it, we had to make contact. From time to time, I would really hit Keanu or he would hit me."

Weaving was disconcerted when he arrived on the set of the third Matrix film to find hundreds of Agent Smith mannequins littering the sound stage, all dressed in identical black suits, white shirts and sunglasses.

"There were rows and rows of them. One time, I looked down and there was my head in a bucket. It was bizarre."

Weaving's Matrix role led directly to his involvement in the The Lord of the Rings project. He received a call in early 2000 from Barry Osborne, who had produced the first Matrix film and was working on the adaptation of Tolkien's epic fantasy in New Zealand. "I remembered Elrond from reading The Hobbit as a kid, so I said: 'That sounds fantastic, I'd love to be involved'."

For the next three years, he flew back and forth over the Tasman Sea, dropping in for a few weeks' filming amid New Zealand's lakes and mountains before heading back to his family.

While the highlights of the trilogy for most cinema-goers were the epic battle scenes and spectacular scenery, Weaving's abiding memory is of the disposable latex ears he wore as Elrond.

"They were stored in a fridge because they tended to droop a bit in warm weather. At the end of each day's filming, I just ripped them off and chucked them away."

Lunchtimes on the set, when the cast and crew stopped for a break, were surreal. "Ian McKellen would have a big snood tied around his beard, to keep it clean while he ate, and then there'd be an orc across the table, wearing a hideous face mask, sipping his lunch through a straw. It was very funny."

Weaving's biggest challenge of all was learning to speak elvish. "It was a nightmare. There would be all these elves sitting around, practising their lines. From time to time, you'd hear someone go: 'Oh f--- it, f---ing hell', because they couldn't get it right."

Playing Elrond was "limited in its appeal to an actor", he admits. For the most part, the role required Weaving to glide around the mythical palace of Rivendell wearing flowing cloaks, looking serene and delivering words of wisdom.

"I found playing Elrond quite hard," he says. He yearned for a more robust action-hero role, like Aragorn, played by Viggo Mortensen. The elves were a bit too squeaky clean for his liking.

Weaving's latest project is Peaches, a low-budget, coming-of-age story about a young girl growing up in a peach-growing town in south Australia after her parents are killed in a car crash.

There are other films in the pipeline, and perhaps a return to theatre in Sydney. But this year, his priority is to restore the former dairy farm that he and his wife bought recently in the lush hill country three hours' drive north of Sydney. The 60-acre property includes patches of rainforest, a fast-flowing river and "a number of exquisite glades". A bit like Rivendell? "Better than Rivendell," he says, with a smile.

If he decides to sign up to another Hollywood blockbuster, Weaving knows he will have to wrestle with the fact that he is now, in his own words, "a commodity".

"It's something I object to hugely," he says. "I try to stay true to what I believe in. If that means the offers dry up, then so be it."

With that, he grins, shakes my hand warmly, and wanders off. Elrond may be immortal, and Agent Smith may be indestructible, but Hugo Weaving has to pick the kids up from school.

The Daily Telegraph, London

Theron laughs off Malibu wedding report

04/03/2004 - 12:56:18

Oscar winner Charlize Theron has laughed off reports in the US that she will marry Irish actor Stuart Townsend in Malibu later this year.

Theron took exception to an article in a Stateside magazine about her impending marriage to Townsend.

The piece claimed they would wed in Malibu later this year, with her pet dogs as "flower girls" and music provided by Keanu Reeves' band, Dogstar.

"Sounds nice," she said, "but we won't be there!"

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After Heart Attack, Changes in Lifestyle Must Be a Priority

Updated: Wednesday, Mar. 3, 2004 - 7:40 AM

Jack Nicholson looked at Keanu Reeves and summed up one of the most serious concerns of many a person who has suffered a heart attack: How long before I can have sex again, doc?

Nicholson and Reeves were playing parts in the comedy "Something's Gotta Give," but for tens of thousands of people each year, the question of life --- sex, driving, work, sports --- after a heart attack is filled with dramatic, urgent overtones.

"After a heart attack, the doctors are thinking about all the medical issues, but the patients are thinking, 'When can I return to a normal life?' " said Dr. Laurence Sperling, director of preventive cardiology at Emory University.

The answer Reeves gave Nicholson --- as soon as you can climb a flight of stairs --- was actually correct. But the two never got into many other things a heart attack survivor should do; Nicholson was out strolling on the beach with Diane Keaton within a few days and having drinks with another woman soon after that.

No one told him about the need for a lifestyle change or the need for cardiac rehabilation, two crucial elements of getting one's health back after a heart attack.

"I feel very strongly about a person beginning cardiac rehabiliation," said Sperling. "It not only helps medically, but it gives support and gives a person a chance to speak to others who have had a heart attack."

Life does go on after a heart attack --- in about 50 percent of cases --- and it goes on much faster today than it did even 10 years ago.

Most patients return to normal levels of activity within six weeks after a heart attack, about half the recuperation time of 25 years ago. Patients no longer stay in the hospital for seven to 10 days, which was standard for years. Now patients often are home by day three. Many are back at work, so long as their job is sedentary, within a month, compared with three months in years past.

Doctors credit new classes of drugs --- the statins, beta-blockers and ace inhibitors --- and higher-tech procedures like angioplasty for the faster recovery times.

But none of the recovery happens without good rehabilitation and a change in lifestyle, doctors said. Also, a swifter, safer return to normal activities often depends upon the effectiveness and immediacy of the treatment a patient receives after a heart attack, doctors believe.

Dee Anderson, 54, was especially fortunate. She suffered a heart attack on a Tuesday in October. She was back to work the next Monday.

Anderson had experienced mild chest pain, lack of energy and an odd pain in her elbows before her heart attack. She made an appointment with a cardiologist, and doctors were able to essentially stop her heart attack while it was in progress. They found a 90 percent blockage in her heart and immediately performed angioplasty, a procedure in which a tiny catheter is inserted into the plugged artery to unclog it.

"My primary symptom was fatigue," Anderson said. "Then shortness of breath, a little angina [chest pains]. What really told me is that it developed into what I called a 'sick ache.' Then when I realized it was in my elbows, I knew I was in trouble."

Anderson's knowledge of heart attack symptoms may have saved her life, but knowing risk factors can also be lifesaving, doctors said. Risk factors include a family history of heart disease, smoking, high levels of triglycerides and low-density cholesterol, low levels of high-density cholesterol, obesity and diabetes. And sticking with her rehab program has been essential.

While doctors are encouraged by new treatments and drugs that thwart heart disease, most predict an increase in coming years because of the obesity epidemic and soaring rates of diabetes. They also worry that powerful drugs called statins that lower high levels of bad cholesterol, and other treatment like angioplasty and stents to open blocked arteries, are giving some patients the impression that a drug or surgery can compensate for an unhealthy lifestyle.

"There's this whole group of people who think the drugs will solve their lifestyle issues," said Dr. Jay Groves, director of the Kim Dayani Health Promotion Center at Vanderbilt University. "They will be on the fast track to return to the emergency room. If they don't change their lifestyle, it [heart disease] will continue."

Lifestyle changes are important not only to avoid a future heart attack but also to return to work, exercise, driving and sexual activity. Rehabilitation helps patients focus on the lifestyle changes, but fewer than 30 percent of patients stick with it, studies show. The low rates of compliance trouble doctors.

Women are less likely than men to continue with cardiac rehab, and that worries Dr. Gina Lundberg director of the Women's Heart Center at St. Joseph's Hospital.

"Far fewer women go to cardiac rehab than men," she said. "We don't know if this is referral bias, or if women aren't as likely to go to a gym, but it's something we're very concerned about."

Most rehabilitation programs begin when a patient is out of the danger zone, Sperling said, at about four to six weeks. The arteries of the heart are inflamed in the days immediately after a heart attack, and they must be given time to become less inflamed. In days past, that might have taken 12 weeks, but with newer drugs, doctors are able to minimize the inflammation after four to six weeks. When the person's arteries are stabilized, it's time for rehabilitation to begin, Sperling said.

The rehab begins with very closely monitored and limited workouts under nurse supervision. The patient wears a heart monitor. Gradually, as the patient improves, he or she will work up to moderate exertion. Doctors and therapists also work closely with patients on lifestyle, reviewing changes that need to be made in diet, exercise and lowering stress levels.

While heart attack patients face shorter recovery times than in years past, doctors do not want patients to rely on technology and drugs alone to move beyond a heart attack.

"The downside of all this is that people are not taking heart disease as seriously as they need to," said Groves. "There is no cure for heart disease. Once you've got it, it's there. It continues to march on, and how quickly it accelerates depends on how a patient manages the disease."

Copyright 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Success Portraits: Neo had a purpose

Staff column

Tayo Oyedeji
March 01, 2004

I love “The Matrix” trilogy. I love the intricate mix of philosophy, action, spirituality and romance. I have seen lots of great trilogies but simply can’t help placing “The Matrix” at the top of the list.

I particularly like the character played by Keanu Reeves—Neo. He was the disengaged yet emotional, weak but strong, moronic yet philosophical, scared and courageous guy designated “the One.”

In the movie, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) was the epitome of cool, calm and collected. He had the philosophical background, the charisma and intelligence required to be the One, but he was not the One. Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss) was a strong female warrior extraordinaire, but neither was she the One.

Neo was probably the antithesis of the One. He lived a double life—a respectable computer analyst by day and a ferocious hacker by night. He had “no form or comeliness that we should desire him,” but he was the One.

However, when Neo discovered his place in the scheme of things, he became a new person, capable of dodging bullets, beating Agent Smith and his cohorts and even flying like Superman.

All it required was for his newfound mentor, Morpheus, to train him, take him to the Oracle and convince him he was the One.

Many people are like Neo before he met Morpheus: still struggling, trying to find their purpose and identity in life. They try a little bit of this and a little bit of that and hope something works out. Usually, it doesn’t.

First, I must confess I don’t believe man is an accident of nature. I have studied evolution, and the theory simply doesn’t make sense. I believe, like Shakespeare said, that “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

A stage is never an accident. It is a carefully designed pedestal for actors in a meticulously drafted play to act their parts.

All men were born to climb the stage of life and play a part in making the world a better place. Your place might be in the classroom teaching future leaders to become better citizens and mine in the laboratory making drugs that help people live a more fulfilling life. But we all have a place.

Success is finding your place on this stage and playing your part to the best of your abilities. Many people have placed the cart before the horse by thinking, “Where can I make money?” instead of “Where am I designed to fit in?”

“Agent Smith” does not want you to reach your full potential, but you can and will achieve it if you discover your destiny—ask Neo.

You will find success when you find your path. However, you need Morpheus, a mentor who has walked the path. You need training. Morpheus can supply that. You need to elude “Agent Smith.” You need an Oracle—only the maker knows the purpose of the product, and you need me to show you how to get all these variables to work in your favor.

The story continues next time.

— Tayo Oyedeji is a journalism and mass communication graduate student. His column appears every other Monday. He can be reached at dailyopinion@ou.edu.

The Altanative Oscares

Posted on Sun, Feb. 29, 2004

MGM PICTURES
Dakota Fanning

If we were handing out the little gold men . . .

By Robert Philpot and Todd Camp
Star-Telegram Staff Writers

As far as we're concerned, the Oscars don't go far enough. It's not like we want to turn it into the Grammys and make it have 1,276 categories or anything, but here are some Academy Awards we would like to see:

• Biggest casting against type: Keanu Reeves as a doctor in Something's Gotta Give.