By all accounts Keanu Reeves is an incredibly lovely person. He’s kind, he’s easy to work with, he’s good with female fans. And he’s generous: He gave a massive chunk of his considerable earnings from the Matrix films to the special effects and make-up department. He even created a private cancer foundation! If you needed any more confirmation that Keanu is a stand-up guy, then a gushing new interview with his stunt double on the John Wick movies should do it.
The stuntman in question is Jeremy Fry, whose extensive CV includes Marvel movies like Black Panther, DCEU movies like Batman v Superman, Baby Driver, The Bourne Ultimatum, even lighter fare like Pee-wee’s Big Holiday and two episodes of The Office. Fry — who’s also doubled for the likes of Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper — spoke with Metro about some of the craziest things he’s had to do on the three Wick films. And it didn’t take long before he sang the praises of Keanu.
“He is a giver, he is selfless, he works tirelessly. Every good thing you’ve heard about him is 110% true,” Fry told the publication. They wound up bonding over their shared love of motorcycles, and soon Reeves was inviting him on trips. “He goes, “Hey, how would you like to go to Laguna Seca?’ and when Keanu Reeves asks you if you wanna go pretty much anywhere, you say yes.” When Fry got there, he found out how many people love this generous man:
‘Turns out he had rented Laguna Seca, which is a very well-known popular racetrack in California, and he rented it for two days, private rental, there were about eighty of his friends and people he knew. ‘There were celebrities there, people from different industries there, a huge cross-section of people. He put us up in local hotels, he catered breakfast, lunch, dinners.’
Of course, despite being well into AARP age, it’s clear that Reeves does a good number of his own stunts, which Fry confirmed. “There was there was a shot where we wanted Keanu to slide up the camera and we wanted to…have the camera come right up to him,” the stuntman said. “And we worked with him for a while on that one, and it’s a tricky one [but] he nailed it. He did such a good job on that.”
That doesn’t mean Reeves leaves Fry with nothing to do. “He has never said, “I want to do that. I want to do it,” Fry says, instead trusting the directors will know when it’s appropriate to call in a stunt professional.
So there you have it: The once and future Ted “Theodore” Logan is one of the good ones in this rotten world. But we already knew that.
(Via Metro)
