Chapter 05 - An Impossible Innocence

Keanu as Siddhartha

The legendary director Bernardo Bertolucci had seen Keanu and wanted to find him to talk about his new project: Little Buddha, the history of Siddhartha, the prince of the century 6 that would come becoming “The Illuminated.” Bertolucci had already tested many actors for the role, of several different nationalities, and didn’t get to find somebody to have the necessary Asian appearance and still the personality the role needed.

Keanu went to Central Park, in New York, for an interview with Bertolucci, and the director knew then that Keanu was exactly what he sought for the role: “So soon we met I was fascinated with his huge naturalness. I didn’t know if his personal life was complicated or not, but his face and movements revealed an impossible innocence.”

It was the innocence that Bertolucci sought. Who, besides anybody appear total innocence and ingenuity, could interpret a prince that had lived so protected that only to 29 years would discover what death and suffering meant? Keanu said: “I am 29. Siddhartha had 29 when it began his search, then I, ironically, am also in the beginning of my journey for the spirituality.”

Filming in Bhutan and Nepal

The filmings began in a small mountain in Bhutan, and for Keanu it was excellent because TV didn’t exist in that country, so nobody knew who he was. For him, it was to live as annonymous. When they change the location to Nepal, all this calmness ends, but Keanu could enjoy it as much as he could.
Some people believed that Keanu had dived in that universe, proceeding many other stars of Hollywood and converted to the Buddhism. That didn’t happen and he was Siddharta for the time that the filmings took. But he learned a lot and he was really interested in everything that he read.

Keanu’s mugshot

When it was launched, in 1995, Little Buddha received a few good reviews, as Keanu, but they continued comparing him with the airhead character Ted. Keanu’s behavior didn’t also help and their whole nights were known in Hollywood, proven for the happened on 1993, when he was arrested in Los Angeles for the charge of drunk driving. On the night of May 5, 1993, Keanu Reeves was spotted driving erratically, at which time he was pulled over. Reeves was arrested for driving drunk, at which time he promptly confessed to the crime and avoided any charge in the matter.

His mugshot was spoted in all newspaper, and then he recognizing himself his own father, having decided to rethink certain attitudes and what he was doing of the own life.