Why Do We Love Keanu Reeves So Much?

He is John Wick, after all. He is Neo, aka The One. He is John Constantine, the demon-slaying anti-hero of DC Comics. He even co-wrote his own likeness into a comic-book series called BRZRKR, which he also plans to make into a film.

I mean, what's not to love about him? He is the epitome of the phrase "so freakin' cool." So much so, in fact, fans and producers have been clamoring for years to get him into the Marvel Cinematic Universe or to wield a lightsaber just once.

But where does this come from? What is it that makes the name Keanu Reeves so undeniably synonymous with excellence?

While I think pop cultures are just a bit guilty of celebrity deification, especially in this case -- (the image above is a real mural in Chile) -- there is something about Reeves that seems to contribute to his international acclaim.

It could be that Time magazine's "ultimate Hollywood introvert" lacks any known controversies or misconduct allegations.

Or maybe it could be his philanthropy. After his younger sister's battle with leukemia, he donated $31.5 million dollars to cancer research. He also continues to volunteer at cancer charities across the country, like Camp Rainbow Gold in Idaho in 2020. There are also multiple rumors of Reeves giving away money or relinquishing earnings -- in one instance for the Matrix franchise, so that there would be a higher special effects budget.

Or maybe it could be related to his tragic past. After having his stillborn child, a girlfriend of Reeves's was killed in a terrible car crash in 2001. Despite such tragedy, Reeves continues to show humility and generosity, never using his trauma as an excuse for reckless or immoral behavior -- or even attention, for that matter -- like so many young Hollywood actors fall prey to.

Or maybe it could be his cosmopolitanism that makes him so pervasively likable. Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon to an English mother and an American father of Hawaiian, Chinese, English, Irish, and Portuguese descent. After his parents divorced, Reeves moved with his mother from Sydney, Australia to New York City to Toronto then to Los Angeles when he began acting in 1984 at age 20. Even during this literal globetrotting, Reeves was heavily exposed to Chinese culture and cuisine and British comedies. Maybe there is something intrinsic in this early multiculturalism that can be attributed to his almost universal appeal.

Though while each of these things is certainly attributable to Keanu Reeves's Keanu-Reeves-ness, I think the base reason for it is a bit more subtle. It's really his humility that speaks to some specific part of us. While the rest of Hollywood relishes in the glamor and fame, the scandals and accolades, the personas and activism, Keanu Reeves is just there, quietly doing more than the rest, and asking for nothing in return, not even recognition. After having worked with Reeves for over a year on the set of Constantine, Shia LeBeouf said he still doesn't "know him that much."

The speechlessness speaks volumes.

His quietude generates an aura of mystery about him that intrigues us and compels us to know more, which only strengthens that gravity only characteristic of Reeves. While the internet will continue to mythologize him beyond logic, the Chosen One carries on unpresuming and inconspicuous in enviable Zen-ness.