Winona Ryder shares story of how Keanu Reeves refused to yell insults at her to make her cry
Actress Winona Ryder recently recalled the start of her friendship with actor and all-around good guy Keanu Reeves.
Ryder told The Sunday Times of a moment when they were shooting a scene for the 1992 film “Dracula.”
Actor Gary Oldman was the vampire, and it was the scene where he turned into a pile of rats.
Ryder’s character, Mina Harker, was supposed to be shocked and then cry. For some reason, the tears wouldn’t come.
Director Francis Ford Coppola started shouting offensive terms in an attempt to make her cry. He asked others, including Reeves, to do the same.
Reeves refused.
“To put it in context, I’m supposed to be crying,” she said. “Literally, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu [Reeves]… Francis was trying to get all of them to yell things that would make me cry. But Keanu wouldn’t, Anthony wouldn’t.”
Reeve played her fiancé, Jonathan Harker, in the film.
The awkward incident led to the two developing a friendship. And as for Coppola, Ryder says they’re “good now”.
“Dracula” won three Academy Awards, with Ryder and Reeves working together again in the 2006 movie Scanner Darkly, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee in 2009, and in Destination Wedding in 2018.
Reeves told PEOPLE that Ryder is a “lovely person and a talented actress” and that they “make a good couple.”
And they may actually be married!
Coppola called a real Romanian priest to preside over their wedding scene in the film. The ceremony took place from start to finish, meaning they’re technically married.
A January 2019 appearance in The Talk had Reeves joking that Ryder was fully committed to their marriage.
“Once in a while, I will get a text: ‘Hello, husband,’” he said.
“I didn’t really believe her, and then Francis Ford Coppola, the director of Dracula, contacted Winona and said publicly that, yeah, that really happened, the priest did a full ceremony, and Winona and I got married.”
Winona is one lucky lady!
Reeves’ random acts of kindness towards fans and people are well known though he doesn’t like being in the spotlight for it.
In 2018, the media and therefore, the world, found out that he had been funding children’s hospitals in secret.
Reeves also told Ladies’ Home Journal of a private foundation he’s been running for years. It aids cancer research with other children’s hospitals.
The charitable initiative is dedicated to his sister, who won her battle with leukemia.
Then in 2019, Keanu surprised a fan named Stacey Hunt. She lives in Slidell, Louisiana where Reeves was filming the third installment in the “Bill and Ted” franchise.
The Hunts family were big fans his, so they planted a poster on their yard to welcome Reeves. The actor saw the poster and signed it before taking pictures with Stacey and her sons.
Keanu Reeves is an amazing actor with many award winning films. But it is his kindness and selflessness that stands out.
Let’s hope he inspires many others to be the same!
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