Keanu Reeves Tells BBC: “ I’m Thinking About Death All the Time”

Keanu Reeves spends a lot of time thinking about death, on and off screen.

Those familiar with the John Wick movie franchise know that the titular character spends a lot of time thinking about death – as in various ways to single-handedly dispatch a small army of villains – in each film. What has been raising eyebrows of late, however, is the news that Keanu Reeves, the actor who plays Wick, also spends a lot of time thinking about death – his own.

Reeve’s habitual end-of-life ponderings came to light recently during an interview with the BBC, in which he said, “I’m 59, so I’m thinking about death all the time.” The statement generated headlines around the world. Lest the audience think the practice is a morbid fixation, Reeves explained that his contemplations weren’t driven by anxiety about death, but rather, a desire to be more mindful of what life has to offer each day.

Reeves talks about death in an interview with the BBC.

“I think thinking about death is good. Hopefully it’s not crippling, but hopefully it’s sensitized [us] to an appreciation of the breath we have, and the relationships that we have, the potential to have,” Reeves said.

Reeves certainly has plenty to appreciate, starting with a movie career that includes his breakout hit, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” action movies “Point Break” and “Speed,” and the sci-fi classic “The Matrix.” In 2020, The New York Times ranked him as the fourth-greatest actor of the 21st century, and in 2022 Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. So, when Reeves gets philosophical, people listen.

While contemplating one’s death might seem like a strange preoccupation to some, Reeves is actually practicing what many ancient religions and modern end-of-life experts advocate. Spending time thinking about the end of your life helps you identify what’s important today, which informs choices that add meaning and value to your life.

Reeves’s ruminations on death arose in an interview promoting his science fiction novel “The Book of Elsewhere,” in which the desire to die is at the heart of the story. Co-written with British science fiction author China Miéville, the novel is based on Reeves’s successful comic book series BRZRKR (pronounced “berserker”) and features an 80,000-year-old immortal warrior who longs for death.

Tragically, Reeves knows something about death in the real world. His close friend River Phoenix, with whom he co-starred in the critically acclaimed “My Own Private Idaho,” died from a drug overdose at the age of 23. Years later, the child Reeves had with his girlfriend Jennifer Syme was stillborn, and Syme died 18 months later in an auto accident.

Reflecting on that event five years later in a Parade Magazine interview, Reeves said his life was permanently altered.

“Grief changes shape, but it never ends,” he told Parade. “People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, ‘It’s gone, and I’m better.’ They’re wrong. … All you can do is hope that grief will be transformed and, instead of feeling pain and confusion, you will be together again in memory, that there will be solace and pleasure there, not just loss.”

He added, “Much of my appreciation of life has come through loss. Life is precious. It’s worthwhile.”

That, in part, may explain why he feels compelled to remind himself frequently of his mortality and the uncertainty of our time here on earth. But he likely has a lot of living yet ahead of him. When the BBC interviewer responded to Reeves’s reference to his age by saying, “You’re still young,“ he said, “I’m young old,” which seems a fair assessment: the fit and youthful looking actor could be the poster child for that aspirational phrase “60 is the new 50.” It’s an essential quality, considering that there are more projects to come, where the bad guys will have the occasion to contemplate their own deaths.