All About Keanu Reeves' Parents, Patricia Taylor and Samuel Nowlin Reeves Jr.

Keanu Reeves' parents met in Lebanon and welcomed their son in 1964

Keanu Reeves has had the support of his mother, Patricia Taylor, throughout his longstanding career in Hollywood.

Patricia and Keanu's father, the late Samuel Nowlin Reeves Jr., who died in 2018, welcomed the future actor in 1964. Keanu has remained close with his mother and has been estranged from his father since he was a child, due in part to his parent's breakup around the time he was 3 years old.

Growing up, Keanu lived all around the world, being born in Lebanon, and then moving to Australia when he was still a toddler. After Samuel and Patricia split up, she took Keanu and his little sister Kim to New York City and then Toronto, where the actor would spend his teen years.

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Keanu tends to keep his personal life out of the spotlight and doesn’t often open up about his parents or his childhood. But throughout the years, he has given some insight into what his globetrotting early days looked like — from his estranged relationship with his father to the love and support he received from his mother.

Here’s everything to know about Keanu Reeves' parents, Patricia Taylor and Samuel Nowlin Reeves Jr.

Keanu’s mom is English and his dad was Chinese and Hawaiian

Keanu's mother Patricia hails from England, while his father Samuel was Chinese and Hawaiian. Because of his father, Keanu has Asian heritage, which he opened up about with NBC News in 2021.

"My relationship to my Asian identity, it's always been good and healthy. And I love it," the John Wick star said. "We've been growing up together."

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In the Matrix movies, Keanu does quite a bit of martial arts, something he said he views as a way to honor his heritage.

"With the martial arts, [we're] presenting those art forms in an artful way, in a respectful way," the actor said. "Not in a way where it's experienced as a caricature, but from a place of reverence."

Patricia and Samuel met in Beirut in their early 20s

Keanu’s parents met in Beirut when they were both in their early 20s. “My mother and father were like 22, 21," the Speed star told Charlie Herzfeld in 2019 on his Conversations with Charlie podcast. “So they met, they fell in love and they had a baby, and that was me. Then they stayed there for a few months and they ended up going to Australia," Keanu explained.

But their relationship was short-lived — Samuel eventually left the family and moved back to Hawaii and Keanu, his sister and his mother then moved to N.Y.C., followed by Toronto.

Patricia also worked in the entertainment industry

Keanu’s mom has lived a star-studded life of her own. Before working in Hollywood, Patricia was a showgirl in Paris. On the Conversations with Charlie podcast, Keanu said that his mother also took odd jobs “picking up pins” in the city’s fashion houses, where she learned to love making and designing clothes.

Later in her life, Patricia became a fashion designer and made stage costumes for musicians like Dolly Parton and Anne Murray. She even did costumes for TV shows, including the popular kid’s show, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?.

When speaking to Jada Pinkett Smith on Red Table Talk in 2021, Keanu revealed that his mother made Parton’s iconic bunny suit for her famous 1978 Playboy cover. The Point Break actor also said that his mom kept the outfit for years after the photo shoot and that he wore it once for Halloween.

“I put on the ears and the bustier,” Keanu said. “I wore sneakers with fishnet stockings and the bow tie. I had some pretty long hair, and I was Dolly Parton’s Playboy Bunny.”

Keanu did not have a relationship with his father

On the Conversations with Charlie podcast, Herzfeld asked Keanu about how his parents met. The actor responded, “My father was there, he had gotten ... I actually don’t really know his story. I think it’s like he was in college and then left and was in Beirut on the beach.”

On the SmartLess podcast in 2023, hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett asked the actor about his history, and Keanu responded, “The story of my past is obviously the story of my mother.” He briefly brought up his dad before moving on, saying, “My father had a stepfather who was Canadian and then there’s a bunch of stuff that happened, but long story short, me and my sister and my mom ended up moving into a house in Canada.”

Samuel left the family when Keanu was 3 and the actor has said the last time he spoke with his father was at age 13. He told Rolling Stone in 2000, "The story with me and my dad’s pretty heavy."

During an interview with The Guardian in 2019, Keanu echoed this sentiment when he was asked if it was hard to not have a relationship with his father. “For sure,” he responded, “I think it’s definitely traumatizing. But it’s hard to know how [it affected me] because I don’t know what the other life would have been, you know what I mean?”

Samuel died in 2018 at the age of 76.

One of Patricia's husbands helped Keanu break into Hollywood

In the early '70s, Patricia briefly married producer and director Paul Aaron, followed by music promoter Robert Miller from 1976 to 1980. Her fourth marriage was to Jack Bond, which lasted a few years in the early '90s and ended in a divorce in 1994.

But it was her second husband, Aaron, who helped Keanu break into the entertainment industry. On the Conversations with Charlie podcast, Keanu said, “He was around for a few years and then I stayed in contact. He was one of my introductions into show business. I was a PA on one of his movie of the weeks when I was like 15.”

After some encouragement from his mom, Keanu started acting, and years later the budding film star and Aaron met up again. Patricia's ex served as a producer for 1991’s Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, the sequel to one of Keanu’s earliest hit movies, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Patricia remains an important part of Keanu’s life

Keanu had a big night at the 2020 Oscars — not only was the actor presenting an award that evening, but his film Toy Story 4 also won the award for Best Animated Feature. To celebrate the night, Keanu brought his mom as his date and the two walked the red carpet together.

On the red carpet, Ryan Seacrest spoke to the mother-son duo and asked Patricia if she knew anything about Keanu’s upcoming film The Matrix Resurrections, the fourth film in the series that was released the following year. Patricia responded coyly with "Nothing," adding she “only [knew] about Matrix 1, 2, and 3."

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