Keanu Reeves’ newest John Wick movie is already kicking butt at the box office and he’ll soon voice a key role in Toy Story 4. This summer we’re blessed with more than two helpings of him. The actor is also now a scene-stealer in Netflix’s latest rom-com release Always Be My Maybe.
The movie stars standup comic Ali Wong as Sasha, a famous chef who journeys back to her hometown of San Francisco on business. When her fiancé breaks off their engagement while she’s away, she finds a rebound in Keanu Reeves, who plays a heightened and hilarious version of himself who rocks fake glasses. While Wong insists Reeves is a lot different in real life than what we see of him in Always Be My Maybe, the actor had some fun adding in improvised bits such as these:
The part where he’s listing off all those Chinese dignitaries, that was his idea. And then the part where he’s like, ‘I don’t have a problem, Sasha, what’s your problem?’ and starts air fighting, he improvised that as well.
Keanu Reeves may be best known as a stoic action star, but one of his early hits was the bro time travel comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a role he will return to in 2020, and he recently starred with Winona Ryder in another romantic-comedy, Destination Wedding.
He was given some freedom in Always Be My Maybe to put his comedic chops to the test and came up with some great lines to stretch out a caricature of himself in the Netflix movie. He is one of three love interests for Ali Wong’s character, which she carefully chose. She continued with these words to People:
It was really important to me that all of her love interests were Asian-American. And we wanted to find a sexy Asian-American man who would be Marcus’ worst nightmare if he decided to confess his feelings.
The girl knew what she was doing! Along with enlisting Keanu Reeves for the project, Ali Wong also cast Lost and Hawaii Five-0’s Daniel Dae Kim as Sasha’s fiancé and Fresh Off the Boat’s Randall Park as Marcus, the one who got away. Marcus and Sasha rekindle a friendship when they run into each other in San Francisco and the old flame falls back in love with her.
Just as he decides to confront Sasha about his feelings for her, she tells him of her new man, Keanu Reeves. When Wong approached Reeves, she found out he was already a fan of hers. In her words:
He wrote, ‘I would be honored to be a part of your love story.’ [...] He’s a funny, sweet professional guy who’s really like about the work. And so much so that it wasn’t intimidating. He was very approachable.
So not at all like his Always Be My Maybe character! It’s great to see actors such as Keanu Reeves try a variety of roles, and with all the projects we’re seeing him take on recently, he seems to be able to do just about everything.
Always Be My Maybe is currently available to stream on Netflix, along with these great movies and TV shows coming to the platform this upcoming month.
