Keanu Reeves Cites Monty Python as His Biggest Creative Inspiration
Monty Python have obviously inspired a number of comedians, writers, filmmakers and aggrieved garbage dump custodians, but it turns out that they also had a big impact on the actor best known for gunning down countless Russian mobsters and downloading kung-fu directly into his cerebral cortex: Keanu Reeves.
Reeves recently attended the Southbank Literature Festival to promote his new novel The Book of Elsewhere, along with his co-author China Miéville. When the moderator asked Reeves about which work of art from his youth “has been the biggest inspiration” in his work, the actor, at first, couldn’t come up with an answer. But then he admitted that it was actually Monty Python.
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“It was such a wonderful influence and model of storytelling,” Reeves said of the iconic comedy troupe, noting that their humor “was so physical but also so intellectual and social.”
This might seem a little bit surprising, considering that the John Wick star isn’t exactly known for making tons of comedies. But Reeves wasn’t just buttering up the English crowd, he is indeed a Python super-fan. For example, when he was asked to provide a list of some of his favorite movies to Esquire in 2021, Monty Python and the Holy Grail made the cut.
Journalist and frequent John Cleese collaborator Iain Johnstone once penned an account of the time he was having dinner with Cleese in Los Angeles, and they were randomly presented with “a $200 bottle of St. Francis Cabernet Sauvignon.” Cleese and Johnstone insisted that they hadn’t ordered it, but the server revealed that it “was a gift from some anonymous diners.”
Cleese asked if his secret admirers could swing by their table before leaving the restaurant, and it turned out to be “Keanu Reeves and a couple of chums.” They all shared a drink, and Reeves and his friends then started reciting scenes from The Holy Grail, with Keanu “doing a perfect rendering of John’s French soldier.”
Yes, they got to see the guy from The Matrix perform the line: “I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”
Reeves’ Python love does explain why the actor has occasionally been up for poking fun at his own image with ridiculous cameos in comedies like Always Be My Maybe, Between Two Ferns: The Movie and, of course, Keanu — although that one came very close to not happening at all.
Reeves said that he owes his knowledge of British comedy to his mother. While he was raised in Toronto, his mom hailed from Essex, and she introduced him to a bunch of old British sketch shows. In addition to the Pythons, Reeves also has a fondness for The Two Ronnies and controversial radio star Kenny Everett.
You’d think that being such a fan of British culture would have helped him to crack that accent in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
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