{"id":309439,"date":"2025-10-17T00:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T00:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309439\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T00:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T00:59:11","slug":"keanu-reeves-briefly-changed-his-name-to-k-c-reeves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309439\/","title":{"rendered":"Keanu Reeves Briefly Changed His Name to K.C. Reeves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere once was a time when Keanu Reeves<\/a> wasn\u2019t Keanu Reeves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring a Wednesday appearance on the New Heights<\/a> podcast, the Good Fortune<\/a> star recounted the early years of his career when he was working with a manager who had the idea to change his name.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was in Toronto, Canada, and then I got a manager who lived in Los Angeles,\u201d he began. \u201cAt 20 years old, I drove in my car to Los Angeles. Got out of my car and my manager said, \u2018We want to change your name.\u2019 And so that\u2019s like, a welcome to Hollywood [moment].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd I remember I was walking on the beach and I was just like, \u2018My name? What if I change my name? What?\u2019\u201d he added. Despite being initially taken back by the idea, Reeves came up with a few alternative name options.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy middle name is Charles, so I was like, \u2018Chuck?\u2019 And I grew up on a street called Spadina, Chuck Spadina,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then I was something Templeton. So then I became K.C. Reeves. I was credited as K.C. Reeves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe John Wick actor is, in fact, credited<\/a> as K.C. Reeves for an episode of the 1986 anthology series The Magical World of Disney. He did not explain why his then-manager prompted him to make the change. But the name didn\u2019t last for long.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd then I couldn\u2019t do it. So then I would be in auditions and they would go, \u2018K.C. Reeves.\u2019 And I wouldn\u2019t even answer,\u201d Reeves added. \u201cSix months later, I was like, \u2018I\u2019m not doing this.\u2019 That\u2019s a Hollywood moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Reeves, Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro recently opened up about how they were encouraged<\/a> to change their names. The One Battle After Another<\/a> star said, similarly on the New Heights podcast, that an agent told him his name was \u201ctoo ethnic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI finally got an agent and they said: \u2018Your name is too ethnic,\u201d I go, What do you mean?\u2019 They go, \u2018No, too ethnic. They\u2019re never going to hire you. Your new name is Lenny Williams,\u201d DiCaprio said. \u201c\u2018What\u2019s Lenny Williams?\u2019 \u2018We took your middle name and made it your last name and now [your first] name is Lenny.\u2019 And my dad saw [the headshot photo the agent took], he ripped it up, and said, \u2018Over my dead body.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There once was a time when Keanu Reeves wasn\u2019t Keanu Reeves.\u00a0 During a Wednesday appearance on the New…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":309440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,26534,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-309439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-keanu-reeves","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115386801819578126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}