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Keanu Reeves

Keanu Reeves still 'wants to do it all'

Brian Truitt
USA TODAY

For Keanu Reeves, playing a man victimized by intruders who’ve invaded his home had its fun moments. When it happened in real life, in two separate incidents last year, that was just way stranger than fiction.

Keanu Reeves stars as a dad who gets in a spot of bother in the thriller "Knock Knock."

“Yeah, there was a little bit of 'life in art' going on,” says the star of the new thriller Knock Knock (opens Friday in select cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Phoenix, and on demand). He chuckles nervously now at the memory of finding a female stalker in the library of his Hollywood Hills home last fall, calmly chatting with her before calling police, and three days later finding out that a second woman moseyed through his security gate, took a shower and went skinny-dipping in his pool when he wasn’t there.

“The real-life stuff was much more terrifying,” he says.

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At least in Knock Knock, Reeves’ character Evan Webber actively lets two attractive young strangers (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) into his life, soaking wet from a downpour and needing a ride. With his wife and kids away, the loving husband and father wants to do the right thing but gives into their temptation, and his life quickly goes to hell.

“There are very few actors who would let me bury them up to their neck,” says Eli Roth, the film’s director and co-writer.

Keanu Reeves as a samurai warrior in "47 Ronin."

Reeves, 51, enjoyed the romanticism of the project but also liked that it was “funny, smart, scary, provocative, thrilling, challenging and had a lot of depth.” It also let him play a dad for the first time — the latest novelty in a recent run of films that have seen him break out of the blockbuster mold he had in the 1980s and ‘90s with Speed, the Bill & Ted films and the Matrix trilogy.

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"He's adjusting his career in a way that has him really shining in lower-budgeted movies," says Erik Davis, managing editor for Fandango.com and Movies.com. Like Liam Neeson and Kevin Bacon, "they're older actors who are discovering success with these grizzled performances in inventive, well-written genre fare."

After taking on a samurai in 2013’s 47 Ronin and especially following his vengeful title hitman in last year’s surprise critical hit John Wick, “it was fun to play this character who gets so brutalized and tied up” in Knock Knock, Reeves says. “Throughout my career, I’ve been hoping and have had the chance to tell different kinds of stories.

“I just want to do it all!”

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Roth was thrilled with how vulnerable Reeves made himself for the sake of the character, who in one tense scene pleads for his life while also chastising his captors for torturing him.

“There are not many actors, let alone stars of his caliber, that would allow you to cut their hair and have the girls humiliate them,” the director says. “Actors are so focused on looking cool in a movie that they rarely give a performance like this where they’re vulnerable and need help.”

Keanu Reeves is the title hitman of "John Wick."

Though Reeves doesn’t have children off-screen, Roth knew he would be a natural.

“I was so happy when he was going ‘Monster!’ stumbling around with cake on his face,” Roth says. “I was like, ‘Oh, God, this poor guy. He’s really in for it.’ ”

But going from John Wick mode to dad mode took a few tries. "The first take with the kids, he was still in (hitman) character. I was like, ‘Maybe this take, say it like you don’t want to shoot them in the face.’ ”

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