International magazine recalls Reeves’ reign as Hamlet

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This article was published 19/04/2019 (2373 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A magazine’s interview with Hollywood star Keanu Reeves has provided the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre a chance to look back at a magical winter when the actor starred in the company’s production of Hamlet.

A GQ article titled, “The Legend of Keanu Reeves” includes a small part mentioning how Reeves was placed in “movie jail” and was “excommunicado” with the Fox movie studio for a decade after he turned down a role in Speed 2, choosing instead to star as the melancholy Dane in, as the article’s author describes it, “f—ing Winnipeg.”

Royal MTC artistic director Steven Schipper had nothing but good things to say about dealing with Reeves, the actor’s commitment to the Winnipeg production and his performance.

“What I remember is that Keanu Reeves was a most excellent Hamlet, and also among the most honourable young actors one could ever hope to meet,” Schipper says.

“He was a phenomenal Hamlet. He was the only Hamlet I’ve ever seen that I didn’t fall asleep at any point of the play and I cried at the end because a young life has been snuffed out so tragically.”

Schipper says Reeves never told him about the movie opportunities he had to turn down due to his commitment to the MTC and Hamlet, but he heard some strong rumours.

“He agreed to come for scale, which I’m not going tell you what it was … he might have turned down Speed 2, but I’m pretty sure he turned down a $6 million-ish US offer to be in Heat. I can only imagine it was the Val Kilmer role, and honour his obligation to come to our theatre to play Hamlet.

“That speaks to what an honourable person he is.”

Schipper, who is leaving the Royal MTC later this year after three decades as its artistic director, turned back the clock to January 1994, when he met with Reeves at a restaurant in Venice Beach, Calif., to make his pitch to the actor about starring in Hamlet in Winnipeg.

“A director who was a teacher of Keanu’s in Toronto was also a friend of mine and let me know from his perspective, Keanu was keen to play Hamlet and that Keanu always rehearsed Shakespeare’s soliloquies as warmups before shooting scenes in films,” Schipper recalled. “He was a real Shakespeare buff.

“So we met for lunch in January at Venice Beach and we talked and I pitched and he says at the end of the lunch he’s still interested. ‘Tell me how much time would I need to give you notice if a really big film offer came up’,” Schipper remembers Reeves saying.

“I said, ‘Say no now.’ If you say yes and we promise you to our audience, then you can’t say no later. No problems, say no now or, ideally, say yes… You have to follow through.’

“I saw in his eyes, I could see him say, ‘If those are your theatre’s values, that you can’t promise me to your audience and then not follow through, then I’m for you,” Schipper says.

“Then he says, let me talk to my manager. That will be the toughest hurdle. Then I’ll let you know,” Schipper says.

At the time, Reeves wasn’t the hot Hollywood commodity he is today, Schipper says. Reeves was known mostly for the 1989 comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a supporting role in 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons and the 1991 heist/surfing flick Point Break, in which he starred opposite Patrick Swayze.

“When I announced that he had agreed at the (MTC) board meeting in February … many of them hadn’t heard of him because if you were over 30, then you didn’t know his previous films. If you were under 30 you were definitely excited about his name,” Schipper says.

“I had to go to the video store and bring in VHS copies of all of Keanu Reeves’s films for our board members to familiarize them to who this guy was,” Schipper recalled.

“Once Speed came out, the entire world wanted to know about Keanu Reeves playing Hamlet. We had about 1,000 people subscribe from other cities from other parts of the world, as far away as Asia, certainly many from Europe.”

It would be five more years before Reeves became a mega-star thanks to his turn in the science-fiction classic The Matrix and its two sequels and 10 years before he played the leading role in the John Wick action-movie franchise, the third chapter of which is scheduled to be released May 17.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca Twitter:@AlanDSmall