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By all accounts, Keanu Reeves is one of the kindest, most down-to-earth actors in Hollywood. Despite his A-list status, The Matrix and John Wick star somehow manages to stay humble. Even early in his career, Reeves was more bemused and overwhelmed by his fame than anything else. And countless fan stories confirm his appreciation for fans, including this one.

Keanu Reeves visits with fans at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2005 in Hollywood, Calif.
Keanu Reeves visits with fans at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2005 in Hollywood, Calif. | Vince Bucci/Getty Images

Keanu Reeves landed his biggest paycheck for ‘The Matrix’ sequels

Following the ground-breaking success of 1999’s The Matrix, it didn’t take long for Warner Bros. to expand it into a franchise. So by the early 2000s, Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving were plugged back into the sci-fi actin thriller series. And for Reeves, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions marked a new career milestone.

While the actor had appeared in hits before, these sequels gave him the leverage to receive the biggest salary of his career. Reeves received $15 million for each of The Matrix sequels as well as a percentage of the movies’ box office earnings. That’s by far the most the actor has gotten before or since. Yet, in the midst of that, he still took the time for his devoted fans.

But the actor still took the time to give a young fan his autograph

Few actors had a better 2019 than Reeves. That year, the actor appeared not only in John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum but also Toy Story 4 and Always Be My Maybe. The Reeves resurgence that had been percolating since the original John Wick in 2014 had officially taken hold. And many fans took the chance to share stories of their interactions with Reeves over the years.

That’s when James Dator — senior staff writer for SBNation.com — took to Twitter to share his own account of meeting Reeves. The encounter in question took place in Sydney in 2001. The actor was in town filming the Matrix sequels back to back and went into a local movie theater to see the new Johnny Depp thriller From Hell when he and Dator came face to face.

After Dator’s botched attempt to get the actor’s autograph, Reeves returned to the box office with a receipt bearing his autograph. It turns out he realized Dator hoped to get Reeves to sign something for him. So the actor bought an ice cream cone at the concession stand “just to get receipt paper so he could scribble his autograph for a 16-year-old idiot,” Dator wrote.

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Keanu Reeves is back as Neo in the upcoming ‘The Matrix 4’

At the time of Dator’s Reeves sighting, the actor was stepping back into his most iconic role as Neo. And now, he’s getting ready to do it again. Nearly two decades after The Matrix trilogy concluded, Reeves, Moss, and a few others are coming back to the series for the untitled fourth installment.

This time around, Lana Wachowski will handle directing duties without sister Lilly. Plot details about The Matrix 4 remain a mystery. But the film is set to hit theaters and HBO Max simultaneously on Dec. 22, 2021. Perhaps fans will even get an influx of new fan interactions from its production.

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