If you have a life on the internet or friends who spam your inbox with memes, you have probably come across the ‘Sad Keanu’ meme.
For the uninitiated, it kinda looks like this:
This photoshop meme is based on a paparazzi photograph that features sullen-looking Keanu Reeves, eating something on a park bench.
But did we care to know why the sweet Keanu was uhm.. sad? Well, Reaves himself provided us with the answer to what was going in his head when that image was snapped.
During a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, he exclaimed, “I’m just eating a sandwich, man!”
The talk show host then asked, “So, you’re not actually sad in ‘Sad Keanu’?” To which he replied,
I was thinking. I had some stuff going on. I was hungry.
Colbert also pointed out that actor’s contemplative chew was also immortalised in the first volume of the comic book BRZRKR. And Keanu stated,
I didn’t know he was going to do that, but that’s what he did. So, I think it’s kind of meta. That’s life in art.
When asked why he feels he’s become so endlessly memeable, his response was classic Keanu: “I have no clue, sir… Really.”
You can watch the entire interview here:
All images are sourced from the YouTube video unless mentioned otherwise.