Toronto’s 2025 People of the Year: Keanu Reeves, Canada Reviews

The Broadway star | Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves brought a Bill & Ted reunion to Broadway and continues to be one of the nicest guys in Hollywood

By Lewis Baumander — director, founder of LB Acting Studio

I first met Keanu when he was about 16 or 17, auditioning for Mercutio in a Romeo & Juliet I was directing. He walked in and said, “I need to play Mercutio,” not “I want to,” and his eyes told me he meant it. He had a kind of fierce gentleness, if those two words can belong together. Years later we reunited to plan a production of Hamlet at Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg, working on the soliloquies on and off for a year before rehearsals in Winnipeg with the full cast. While in L.A., and later in Winnipeg, I saw first-hand how generous his spirit was — open, giving, completely unassuming. Early in his career the media was not always kind, but he rose above it, refused to play into it and went about his work in an honourable way. Even after Speed opened, he stayed committed to being not only the best actor, but the best human being he could be. Our time exploring our shared love of Shakespeare and witnessing his grace will always be one of my most cherished memories.