The Famous Rocker Who Used To Babysit Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves has transformed into so many iconic characters over the years, like the unstoppable assassin John Wick, Neo (Thomas Anderson if you prefer the blue pill), Dracula's buddy Jonathan Harker, and who can forget the most excellent Ted "Theodore" Logan. The action star keeps reinventing himself and fans love it.
Megan Mitchell, the festival organizer for KeanuCon — a Keanu Reeves film festival in Glasgow that started in 2019! — spoke with GQ about the actor's appeal. "I think he's an actor that has got an innate likability about him," she said. "There's a connection there. Even with some of his sillier films like Constantine or Man of Tai Chi, you know he's having fun, so the audience is having fun." Despite experiencing many tragedies, Reeves exudes a calm positivity and spirit.
This fun vibe has been talked about in Reeves' childhood as well. His mother Patricia Taylor would use her design skills and make "elaborate Halloween costumes" for him growing up, according to Collider. The action star hit trick-or-treating as the ever-popular Batman and Dracula, funny when he would later be cast as the aforementioned Harker in "Bram Stoker's Dracula." This whimsical childhood of vivid characters stretched well beyond Halloween festivities, however. That's right! Even the guy who babysat Reeves is larger than life.
Part-time rock and roller, part-time babysitter?
During a 2017 interview on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," Keanu Reeves conjured the fuzzy memories of an incredibly bizarre moment. Reeves and his family settled in Toronto by the time he was 7, per Insider, and it is during this young period that he was babysat by the Godfather of Shock Rock, Alice Cooper.
The rock-and-roll icon's image alone could spook a kid, but Reeves did not recall the extravagant stage makeup at the time. When asked if the experience was scary as Fallon held up an image of the gruesome Cooper on the "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" album from 2011, Reeves responded, "Well, he didn't look like that." The rocker clearly has a different vibe than his on-stage persona.
How on earth did this babysitter scenario unfold? Sometimes it's as simple as who you know. Reeves' mother, Patricia Taylor, was a costume designer and worked with plenty of rockers, via Showbiz Cheat Sheet. The family lived on Hazelton Avenue in Toronto, the same street where Nimbus 9 Records was based. "She was in rock-and-roll, in the business, and they had friends and she had friends, and so Alice Cooper, I'm told, babysat me," Reeves explained. He seems to share the same disbelief as everyone else over the peculiar story. "I mean, I don't know how that could actually possibly happen, but it did supposedly," he told Fallon.
Keanu Reeves' fuzzy memories make for great stories
Having a rock legend babysit you sounds like an unforgettable experience, but as Keanu Reeves said, he was just a "little one" at the time. One fragment of a takeaway from Alice Cooper's babysitting adventures is that he was definitely some kind of prankster. "I remember that there was fake poo in the fridge. Like somehow, that connected like that," Reeves said with a laugh to Jimmy Fallon.
Another vague memory of Cooper comes from Evan Williams, Reeves' childhood friend. Williams recalls the musician challenging them both to a bit of wrestling, stating that Cooper beat them up and tied them into "a human knot," according to Far Out Magazine. The kids were left befuddled after the encounter, a memory that may be more befuddling today with how big of a star Cooper turned out to be.
These delightfully plucked moments from the "John Wick" star's life only add to the charm and whimsy of the real-life character he has become, proving that at any moment in your life, funny coincidences and chance encounters can occur.