Reluctantly moving out of the beautiful house she's been renting on the shores of a peaceful lake, Dr Kate Forester leaves a note for whoever moves in next asking that he or she forward her mail. What begins as a simple note to the next lucky tenant evolves into an unusual love story in which two strangers grow to care for each other through a series of letters left in the house's mailbox. The 'unusual' part of the story - they live two years apart. It's 2006 in Kate's world and only 2004 in Alex Wyler's (Reeves).
The Original Film: “On this project I didn’t see the original film because the script was so different. It didn’t really see how it pertained to me. I’m probably going to watch it now because I hear it’s a great film, but I didn’t look at it in terms of my work on this piece.”
Reuniting with Sandra Bullock: Reeves and Bullock have remained friends since working together on the 1994 action hit, Speed. So why has it taken so long to get together to do another film? “Well, we kept in touch. We never really actively pursued a project really, it was more to the fates… It just seemed to kind of come together; this film at this time. What led up to it or how it happened, eventually we both liked the material, liked the idea of what this film was. It was an atypical dramatic romance. I was drawn to that. I liked the dialogue. It was very sweet. I liked these characters trying to figure out their own lives, kind of coming together in a way that I hadn’t really seen before.”
Working with Director Alejandro Agresti: “I went to meet him at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I wasn’t familiar with his work except for Valentin. In meeting him, he’s quite a unique person; the way that he collects Russian first editions. He builds stereos, he builds his own amplifiers. He’s written four novels, he’s made 18 films. He’s quite a Renaissance man; a man of passion. So, in meeting him, seeing his cinema, then on this project, I was quite taken with him and was really looking forward to working with him. All those kinds of passions he has, his interests. He’s larger than life.”
Reeves continued. “It was, at times, inspiring. At times you have to wait for Alejandro to come back to earth. He asked me to look at an Antonioni film… Doing that kind of cinema that is very compositional, involving nature, but he likes his actors to be kind of naturalistic within [the scenes], which I liked. I liked working within his frame. You just had to figure out what he wanted.”
Reeves said Agresti has very definite opinions on how to shoot a film and at times that meant Reeves wasn’t sure the director was getting all the shots he needed. “We had to battle with him too because I remember the first couple of scenes I worked on with Alejandro, we did this take and it was like, ‘Place the camera,’ and he was like, ‘Next scene.’ ‘What do you mean, next scene? Where’s the coverage, where’s the over the shoulder?’ ‘No! I know!’ Then, after a couple of weeks of filming, the studio called and was like, ‘Where’s the coverage?’ ‘There isn’t any.’ Alejandro, on a certain scene would bring the camera in, so he was really cutting his movie on the floor. In a way it kind of took the control out of studio [hands]. The studio was like, ‘We want coverage in case we want to edit it our way,’ I think, but they also would just like to see it. But Alejandro really just sees it in his head and cuts on the floor.”
Updates on Future Projects: As recently as August 2005 there were rumors of a movie about the murder of Lana Turner’s lover, Johnny Stompanato, floating around. Keanu Reeves and Catherine Zeta-Jones were supposedly attached to star in the film. Unfortunately, it looks as though that project's dead in the water. “We tried to have that happen, but that didn’t work out,” said Reeves. “It’s a long story.” Reeves’ co-star Sandra Bullock said it’s a story that needs to be heard and expressed disbelief that the film couldn’t come together. Reeves agreed. “Yeah it’s fantastic, but it didn’t work out.”
As for the status of a Constantine sequel, Reeves isn’t sure what’s happening. “It’s kind of in the air. Maybe. I’d love to, but I don’t know if the producers would want to do it.”
