Keanu Reeves On indie success with Thumbsucker

Keanu Reeves has played many roles in his time - the messiah, Buddha, one half of a rock duo that brings about world peace - so he's clearly a man in touch with his spiritual side. That's why he's so perfectly cast as a guru orthodontist in this week's Thumbsucker, the little indie movie that could. We talk to the former Mr Ted Theodore Logan Esq. about smoking, getting older and robbing banks.

What's Thumbsucker about?
Lou Pucci plays Justin, a teenager who still sucks his thumb and the film is all about how he tries to overcome it and the way it affects his family and friends. I play a transcendental dentist who offers him hypnosis to give him strength.

I play a transcendental dentist

Do you have any horror dentist stories?
I had two of my wisdom teeth pulled out in Toronto when I was younger. And I'll never forget the sound of the pliers and the knee in my chest. It was nasty.

Did you suck your thumb as a kid?
I have not and have never been a thumb-sucker. I did everything else.

Were there any behavioural habits like thumb-sucking that you tried to let go when you were younger?
No. When I was a teenager, I always fantasized about robbing a bank. I mean, it just sounded like fun what with all the plotting and planning, the danger, the treasure.

What was it about the Thumbsucker script that made you want to play a dentist?
It was the humanity of the story. The writing was lovely and a lovely role. My character has several incarnations and I loved his search for meaning of life.

Your character smokes in this movie. Do you?
I smoke too much. In some scenes in Constantine, it was like, "Watch Keanu turn green."I smoked so much. It was a lot, it was a lot. I should quit.

Are film sets generally bad for your health? What's the worst injury you're sustained?
I was filming The Replacements and I ran into someone I shouldn't have and I got a stinger. It's where your neck compresses and you lose feeling and the use of your arms. And I had a general sense of pain. I had a two-level fusion: two vertebrae fused in my neck so there was a lot of concern. But I went and had a MRI scan and was fine. When it first happened I was really scared because I'd never had a stinger before. You lose feeling in your arms and your hands. That sensation in me was really intense for about 20 minutes and then the limb aspect of it went away in about two hours.

Did you end up in hospital?
Yeah. I had to go straight to the hospital. I took a handful of Advil and then when I got to the hospital they gave me the good stuff and sent me home with some more of the good stuff and ice and heat. I went back the next day.

What do you look for when you take a role?
I'm always looking to see a vision, to see what's interesting in the piece. Fifteen years ago I wouldn't have asked Francis Ford Coppola, 鉄o how do you rehearse?・I wouldn't have done that. But sometimes now I find it interesting before I go into it to speak, to share thoughts and feelings. For example, with Mike Mills on Thumbsucker, I met with him and I went along with his process. It's a matter of getting to know each other.

This is a tiny, independent film compared with some of your previous big studio films like Constantine. What are the main differences?
The resources that come into making a movie don't really impact on the relationships inside, in terms of telling a story, for me. Sometimes resources just mean you get to work on a bigger set. Walking on the set for Constantine is a different day than walking on the set for Thumbsucker. But in terms of working on the role, or coming to work, no, it's not different. I guess the pressure is less.

Justin's mother is hung up on a soap star. When you were an aspiring actor, which star did you want to meet?
When I was about 15, my stepfather directed Kate Jackson, who played Sabrina in Charlie's Angels, in some movie called Thin Ice. I was a PA on that film so I got to meet her. I remember she was interested in the latest Star Wars movie that was coming out. I bought her a soda and we talked about the new movies.

Are you interested in old Hollywood at all?
The last book I read was a biography on Frank Capra. And I're also read a book on D.W. Griffith so once in a while there seems to be moments where I am interested about the old studios.

What's next? Is it true you're been cast in Stompanato, about the mobster boyfriend of screen legend Lana Turner?
Yeah, I'm meeting with Adrian Lyne and Catherine Zeta- Jones to do a reading of some of the scenes. Hopefully we can get that picture made.

You used to play bass in Dogstar. Is that still happening?
No, not any more. I don't play in a band anymore. I have no idea if I'll do it again but I know right now that I don't play in the band.

Are you too old for it? Mick Jagger is on the road and he's 63...The guy is a living legend though. That's what he does.

You're now in your 40s. Are you slowing down?
I'm making all the noises that a post-40 man makes. [laughs] I make that walk to the bathroom in the morning. I never used to lean against the wall. [Laughs] I am that guy.

Peeved Reeves

>> Keanu grunts, groans and scowls his way through an interview about his role in Thumbsucker >>

by MATTHEW HAYS

Keanu Reeves hates the press. Or so it would seem, as he sits down to talk about his latest film, Thumbsucker, an independent bit of Sundance chic that has the surreally good-looking thespian playing a new-age orthodontist.

One can’t really hold it against dear Keanu for hating journalists. After all, it was bottom-feeding tabloid types who gleefully ran with the oft-repeated rumour about his marrying Hollywood mogul David Geffen in a clandestine ceremony. That tall tale got repeated so many times in the early ’90s that it almost transcended Hollywood urban legend to become a self-fulfilling reality, much like the one about Richard Gere’s gerbil mishap. Geffen finally doused the whole story, stating unequivocally that he’d never even met Keanu.

Then, of course, there are the critics, who have long trashed Keanu’s acting style. He is a lightweight poseur, goes the argument, a dude whose career should have sunk long ago, but who stays afloat by the good graces of his looks and little else. (For the record, I think he often delivers carefully minimalist performances that are actually grounded in an intelligent acting process. I predict he’ll get his due as an actor in late career, much like Clint Eastwood has. But that’s just me.)

It doesn’t help that Keanu is now sitting at a round table at the Toronto International Film Festival. These round tables allow celebrities to be fast-tracked through a large number of scrums, allowing eight or even 12 journalists to interview a celebrity at once. Simply put, it’s the assembly line applied to the interview technique. It sucks, both for the writer and the interview subject. Keanu knows this, and clearly hates it. Which is kinda too bad, given that the film he’s here to pump up, Thumbsucker—an unusual tale about a teenage boy whose parents insist he give up sucking on his thumb—isn’t a bad movie at all. As well as the Matrix star, the film’s kick-ass cast includes Tilda Swinton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Benjamin Bratt, Vince Vaughn and celebrated newcomer Lou Pucci in the lead.

Keanu grunts and groans his way through a series of questions, looking particularly askance at one journalist sitting to his left, an overweight Australian who apparently has not discovered the magical powers of deodorant. “Was this a character you could identify with?” asks one journalist. “Yeah,” replies Keanu.

This is perhaps the most insightful part of Keanu’s interview. There’s a pause, and someone tries to squeeze some juice out of him. “I really enjoyed where he ended up,” Keanu says. “And where he started. He’s an orthodontist with some ideas about life.”

Deep thoughts

I decide to chime in with what I consider to be a deep thought: “How would you say your craft as an actor has evolved since you began making movies?”

Not knowing my theories about his oeuvre first-hand, Keanu interprets this as an attack, rather than a sincere question. He has taken his barbs, after all. “I know more about it,” he responds, icily.

Someone continues, suggesting that with his stoned-out orthodontist role, Keanu appeared to be self-consciously referencing his own career, in particular stoner Ted from the Bill & Ted movies. “That was not intended,” insists Keanu.

Then I step in again with the deep thoughts: “It seems like perhaps you were doing a parody of a Keanu Reeves performance…”

And that, as it turns out, is a bit too much for Keanu to take. He clams up. “I’m not saying,” he states, while crossing his arms firmly.

A scowl sets in

With that, director-writer Mike Mills steps in, happy to fill in the gaps. The film, he said, was his own way of reiterating a message he needs to hear himself: that there is no such thing as normal. While his protagonist is a tormented thumbsucker, the lad soon learns that being different really isn’t such a bad thing, and rather than fight his purported faults, he should simply embrace them.

Another journalist uses this as a cue to get back to Keanu. Isn’t a film like Thumbsucker a perfect reflection of Reeves’s own career, given his non-typical status in the business? I mean, Keanu, you’re hardly the typical Hollywood guy, argues the journo.

“Who is?”

Do you have a career plan, goes another question, or just fly by the seat of your pants?

“Is there anything in between?”

Another journalist attempts to appeal with a softer question: do you prefer comedy to drama?

Keanu brings this round table to a bitter end. “I don’t really know. Unless, of course, I’m parodying myself.”

Thumbsucker opens Friday, Oct. 28

The Scoop on Stompanato

Posted Oct 20, 2005, 10:33 AM ET by Martha Fischer
Filed under: Casting, Drama, Newsstand

The rumors are true: Catherine Zeta-Jones has officially confirmed that she will be playing Lana Turner in Adrian Lyne's Stompanato. Despite the fact that Sharon Stone reportedly was desperate for the role (Zeta-Jones: "Guess what? I really really wanted to do Basic Instinct 2!" Zing!), producers have gone with someone whose hair they are going to have to dye. Mrs. Douglas has also confirmed that Keanu Reeves is going to play the title role.

Just to review, Stompanato will tell the real-life story of Turner's affair with mobster Johnny Stompanato (you may remember him as the guy sitting with the girl "cut to look like Lana Turner" in L.A. Confidential). Their already tempestuous relationship got significantly more so when the abusive Stompanato turned up stabbed to death. Though the official story was that he was killed by Turner's daughter, rumors that Turner herself did the stabbing have always been around. There's no word yet on how Lyne's film will approach the death, but one thing we can count on is that it'll be fantastically overwrought and chaotic (both good things, by the way).

Actor Keanu Reeves arrives at the 20th annual American Cinematheque Award

Actor Keanu Reeves arrives at the 20th annual American Cinematheque Award