Beloved actor Keanu Reeves is instantly recognizable from the many blockbuster films he’s been in, such as The Matrix films and the more recent John Wick series. But for younger generations, it seems that Reeves is getting recognised for a whole other reason – being the ‘Fortnite guy.’ (Thanks to Polygon for finding another reason why Keanu Reeves deserves all our love.)
In an E3 Coliseum chat about cross-platform storytelling, Epic Games creative director Donald Mustard tells a story about how kids keep approaching Reeves and calling him the ‘Fortnite guy.’ “He was starting to have all these kids come up to him,” Mustard says. “All these teenagers on the street and they weren’t doing the normal, ‘Oh you’re Neo’ or ‘oh you’re Wick’ it was ‘Fortnite guy!’
Many Fortnite fans have compared the black suit wearing character, The Reaper, to the character of John Wick, and John Wick, of course, is a character played by Reeves. Mustard goes on to explain that Reeve’s anecdote eventually lead to Epic and Reeves working together on the John Wick crossover in Fortnite. You can see the full Coliseum interview below.
Although The Reaper and John Wick share many similarities, Mustard explains that the character of The Reaper was not solely inspired by the slick assassin, but loosely based on “the man in black” character archetype.
Keanu has been a highlight of this year’s E3, completely stealing the show at Microsoft’s conference. There it was announced that Reeves is in Cyberpunk 2077 and that he would be playing a character called Johnny Silverhand. Reeves also had a memorable exchange with an audience member with them both shouting “you’re breathtaking” at each other that subsequently ended up with the Cyberpunk 2077 devs giving a go-kart to charity.
Read more: Cyberpunk 2077 is already a Steam bestseller
If you want more of Keanu Reeves – who doesn’t? – keep an eye out for more information about his role in Cyberpunk 2077 with our Cyberpunk 2077 release date that has everything we know about the game.