Keanu Reeves has over one hundred credited roles as his first role in television was in 1984. Since he has been on television and in movies for so long, fans are very observant about him and his life. Some have even noticed that he limps, but aren’t sure why.
Since Keanu Reeves is not a very public person, it is hard to tell exactly why he has a limp, but it is likely from his old spinal injury. Keanu Reeves is known for his action movies, notably his role in The Matrix. Many of his fans don’t know that he does all of his own stunts and because of this, he sometimes gets injured.
Continue reading to find out how Keanu Reeves got injured and how that affected his life.
Keanu’s Shattered Disks
When Keanu Reeves was younger and living in Toronto, Canada, he played a lot of hockey. He was the goalkeeper on his high school’s team
He enjoyed it so much that he was going to apply for the Canadian Olympic hockey team, but some accounts say he quit because he wanted to act, others say it was because of his injury.
What kind of injury he had was not revealed as he was not famous at that point, he was only 15. He has not come out and said anything directly about it either since.
The injury, however, could have been one that he has talked about later on. When he was filming The Matrix, he had to get neck surgery.
Keanu says: “I had one old compressed disk and one shattered disk. One of them was really old, ten years, and eventually one started sticking to my spinal cord. I was falling over in the shower in the morning because you lose your sense of balance.”
He still went on to film the movie though and says this is why there are not many kicks in the film since he had a limited range of movement.
Since The Matrix was filmed in 1999, the injury he was talking about ten years prior could have been the same one that stopped his hockey career and caused his limp.
It is not clear what caused his limp as Reeves says he is a private person. It may have been his spinal cord injury or could be from his other injuries on set.
Keanu’s Other Injuries
Since Keanu Reeves does all of his own stunts, he has been injured on set before. He has actually also been injured offset as well since he is an avid motorcyclist.
In 1996, Keanu Reeves got into a motorcycle accident and broke his ankle. The accident was said to not be his fault, but he needed surgery to fix his ankle.
This may have been the cause of his limp since it was quite a long time ago, but again, Keanu Reeves does not discuss it much.
Again, in 2001, Keanu Reeves was having problems with his ankle while filming The Matrix. The director sent him to the hospital and the X-ray did not show anything wrong.
Keanu insisted that it was hurting, so he got a cast put on. This injury may have been from his prior ankle injury making him have a weak ankle and potentially his limp.
There is a video of Keanu limping onset of the film John Wick 3: Parabellum following one of his stunts. Since this film was made in 2017, it is likely that his knee and leg were hurting from one of his past aforementioned injuries.
He tried to continue filming the scene but seemed like he was in too much pain even after stretching out his legs, so his co-workers called him a taxi to go home.
So, it is not clear how Keanu Reeves got his limp exactly, but it seems as though it is from one of his many accidents and injuries.