And now for the “don’t @ me” part of the piece: I am well aware that Keanu has many deniers. That the chill-surfer-bro quality of his voice (WHOA!), or the way he sometimes moves his head (c'mon, you gotta flip the hair out of your face sometimes), makes it so that you just cannot take him seriously. Deadpan isn’t for everyone. But I’m making an argument for authenticity here. And I’m not alone in this. There’s a reason why directors like Richard Linklater and Gus Van Sant cast him for heady roles. Why he turned down Speed 2 ("It's called Speed and it's on a cruise ship," he said) and Heat to play Hamlet for a Canadian theater company. And why a Village Voice critic said in a review of John Wick: "Reeves is wonderful here, a marvel of physicality and stern determination—he moves with the grace of an old-school swashbuckler.” A swashbuckler! But really, it's this old school aspect of Keanu that I respond to. He's a throwback to a time when actors were actors, not celebrities.

Keanu Reeves (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage) Ron Galella Keanu Reeves during The 8th Annual IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards at Santa Monica Beach in Santa Monica, California, United States. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage) Ron Galella

The year was 1991. Keanu’s three films—My Own Private Idaho, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, and Point Break—couldn’t be more different from each other in aesthetic or ambition, and they are all very, very good. Keanu is very, very good in all of them. In her New York Times review of Point Break, Janet Maslin said Keanu “displays considerable discipline and range.” That assessment holds up today, fifty some-odd films later. Deadpan and all, Keanu’s versatility and distant acting style are part of what make him so great to watch, and why some of his roles just ooze the kind of effortless cool that people associate with golden-age Hollywood types. It helps that we know almost nothing about his personal life. He's famously tight-lipped when it comes to family and relationships, and his mixed background (born in Beirut, raised in Toronto, of British, Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Chinese ancestry) makes generalizing about him impossible. He’s the mutt in the dog park that makes all the purebreds seem fussy and lame.

Keanu's ability to eliminate the boundary that separates himself from the character is part of what makes him interesting to watch. It’s also why he makes some people so uncomfortable. But I'd argue that's a decision he's made deliberately. Who hasn't read a great novel and mistaken the protagonist for the author? It takes skill. But it’s also what his detached swagger—his ineffable cool—is all about. He’s this ageless, unknowable, abstract sort of guy. He goes away for four months to learn Kung Fu. He's been in a bunch of motorcycle accidents. He plays bass in a band and sometimes rides the subway.