The one character Keanu Reeves has always dreamed of playing: “I’d love to do that role”
Keanu Reeves has long been one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but whether he’s one of Hollywood’s greatest actors is a different story.
It’s undeniable that the actor has been in many great movies, from Gus Van Sant’s moving story of queer hustlers, My Own Private Idaho, to the commercial hit The Matrix, but Reeves has never been seen as the second-coming of Laurence Olivier, or even been held to the same standards as many of his contemporaries; he’s no Daniel Day-Lewis.
In fact, Reeves has been nominated for a handful of Razzie Awards, including ‘Worst Actor’ for the likes of A Walk in the Clouds, Johnny Mnemonic, Hardball, and Sweet November, although he has also been nominated for the ‘Razzie Redeemer Award’ a few times more recently, proving that he isn’t a total failure in Hollywood’s eyes. He certainly has the lovable charm to make him an enticing screen presence, but it’s when he has to do something a little more complicated, like a dramatic monologue or an accent (who can forget his turn in Bram Stoker’s Dracula), that his weaknesses seep through.
Whenever he has tried his hand at Shakespeare, for example, he has unfortunately been met with rather negative reviews from critics, despite the fact that he is a massive fan of the Bard and it’s a dream of his to play Macbeth, a role that has previously been portrayed by everyone from Olivier to Patrick Stewart and, more recently, Michael Fassbender.
“I’d love to do that role,” he once claimed, “It hasn’t worked out yet, but maybe down the road. Maybe I’m too old for the role, but it is Shakespeare, so you can do it whenever”. Perhaps Reeves will get around to Macbeth one day, but if his track record with Shakespeare is anything to go by, then it might not happen anytime soon.
Back in 1994, he earned a ‘Worst Supporting Actor’ nomination from the Razzies for his performance as Don John in Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, starring alongside the likes of heavyweights such as Branagh, Emma Thompson, and Denzel Washington, and unable to compete, with most writers pointing their criticisms of the film towards Reeves’ lacklustre performance.
He also admits that when he played Hamlet during a production for the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, his performance wasn’t his best.
“To play that dude is, well, it’s worth it, in spite of the fact I wasn’t too good, at first. On opening night, I couldn’t breathe. I had to get over that. I was like a deer caught in the floodlights. I was, kinda, mesmerised,” he told The Virginian Pilot, “On the second night, I was better. The reviews were bad, understandably, but a few critics came back later in the run, and I was better.”
Who knows if Reeves will ever be offered the chance to play Macbeth, but I’m sure he could make it happen if he is so desperate; whether it would be a career highlight is up for debate.
