Keanu Reeves still perfectly remembers the day he arrived in Hollywood and they asked him to change his name: which one would he choose?
Some time ago, at the beginning of his career, Keanu Reeves had to consider a possible name change to be able to walk the Hollywood road. Today he is one of the most famous actors in the film industry, mainly thanks to some of his most successful films such as the franchise Of John Wick. The fourth and apparently last chapter has been launched in theaters for a few weeks, generating strong interest and preparing the ground for the spin-off Dancer with Ana de Armas. Yet, in a recent interviewKeanu Reeves has revealed that some time ago someone asked him to change his name because it was unattractive in the eyes of Hollywood.
Keanu Reeves has considered changing his name at the beginning: which one would he have chosen
Today it is impossible to forget the name of Keanu Reeves, thanks to his cinematic exploits that will hardly go into the background. Yet even Keanu Reeves was a rookie actor and he still remembers that period perfectly. At the time, in fact, someone asked him to change his name as it was considered unattractive. During the podcast Smartless, the John Wick actor recalled when his agents informed him of a possible (drastic) change in his life. For him to be successful in Hollywood, he would have to change his name. This request arrived promptly. As soon as he arrived in Hollywood, the actor was proposed to change his name, trying something different. The reason? As Keanu Reeves explained, he mostly worried that he was “too ethnic”:
I got my first car when I was 20 and so I went to Hollywood. Sure, when I got here, they immediately asked me to change my name. I remember driving across the country when they asked me to, driving up and down the beach in Santa Monica and cursing to myself. At that point I decided: I will change my name and call myself Templeton.
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The first choice – Templeton – didn’t work, so Keanu Reeves said he simply opted for the initials of his name: KC extension (Keanu Charles). But even that choice did not bear fruit. “I’d show up for auditions and they call me KC, I wouldn’t even look up. At that point I confronted my agents and told them I couldn’t change my name.” Eventually the agents gave up on the idea and Keanu Reeves ticked it off.