The scene Keanu Reeves didn’t want to shoot: “It was disturbing to play that role”
One of the most universally beloved figures in Hollywood with a legion of heartwarming stories to back up his reputation as one of the nicest people in the industry, it’s always been hard to buy into the idea of Keanu Reeves as a villain because everybody knows that he’s the exact opposite.
Of course, actors are supposed to play characters who aren’t reflective of their real-life personalities, but when the audience knows Reeves doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, it’s exponentially more difficult to get on board with the prospect of the star embodying an irredeemable piece of shit.
He did break bad as the principal antagonist of his directorial debut, but Man of Tai Chi was a box office disaster that hardly anybody saw. He was cast against type as a killer in The Watcher, too, which only happened because Reeves maintained his signature was forged on the contract, so he played the part to avoid legal action, making it entirely unsurprising that his performance was wretched.
He’s been a cult leader in The Bad Batch, a corrupt cop in Street Kings, a sinister motel owner in The Neon Demon, and a would-be adulterer who gets his comeuppance in Knock Knock. Still, beyond that, outright villainy is few and far between in his filmography. However, the most underrated work of his career came when he embraced his dark side, with The Gift‘s Donnie Barksdale a nasty piece of work.
In Sam Raimi’s supernatural psychological thriller, Reeves projects menace and animosity as the violent and abusive husband of Hilary Swank’s Violet Barksdale, who becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation instigated by Cate Blanchett’s clairvoyant Annie Wilson.
Reeves is the last person most people would think of when it comes to casting such a heartless character, and he struggled to get into the right mindset when scenes required him to get physical with both Swank and Blanchett. “It was disturbing to play that role,” he admitted. “I don’t practice physical violence, so that, to me, was very difficult.”
One exchange required him to strike Blanchett, and he didn’t want to do it. His co-star was comfortable and trusting enough to offer encouragement, even if his reluctance was there for all to see on set. “When I approached Cate, I had to hit her,” he said. “Though I was pretending, it was really hard to punch her in the stomach.”
He was understandably opposed to the idea, only for Blanchett to offer her reassurances: “This is one of Cate’s great things: she told me, ‘Come on, let’s do it’, and it was wonderful.” As trepidatious as he was, Blanchett’s words of encouragement convinced Reeves that to best service the story of The Gift and their roles in it, he had to do something he clearly wasn’t comfortable with.
