The 100 Greatest Movie Stars of Our Time

Keanu Reeves, born September 2, 1964

His slightly wooden style may be underappreciated by critics, but Keanu Reeves has carved himself one bitchin’ career. After making his name as a dopey time-traveling dude in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, he got cast by such discerning directors as Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho) and Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker's Dracula), Reeves even dropped his trademark expression - whoa! to tackle a Shakespeare classic (Much Ado About Nothing). Then, with 1994’s Speed, he vroomed into the fast lane. “What is nice about him as an action hero is that he’s vulnerable on the screen,” said the film’s director, Jan De Bont. Keanu means “cool breeze over the mountains” in Hawaiian, and he has weathered some ill winds. He was left in infancy by his half-Hawaiian, half-Chinese dad, and in 1999 Reeves and girlfriend Jennifer Syme had a still-born baby (Syme died last year in a car accident). Now filming two sequels to his megahit The Matrix, Reeves has long resided in an L.A. hotel between gigs with his rock band Dogstar and location shoots. “Acting is home for me,” he has explained. “That is where I live.”