Keanu Reeves stars as a movie star on a mission in Jonah Hill’s star-studded comedy flick, also featuring Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer
Former child star-turned-global megastar Reef Hawk (Keanu Reeves) has spent the last five years rebuilding his life, after substance abuse derailed it. Long gone are the wild days of his youth, with Reef now spending most of his time with trusted best friends Kyle (Cameron Diaz) and Xander (Matt Bomer). But this newfound inner peace is about to be shattered by a phone call from his lawyer Ira Slitz (Jonah Hill), who breaks the news that someone out there has a video that could ruin Reef’s now hard-earned good guy reputation. What’s a disgraced actor to do but go on an apology tour? Reef embarks on a journey of making amends with a long (and we mean long) list of potential enemies.
Directed by Hill and written by Hill and Ezra Woods, Outcome is what Diaz calls a “cautionary comedy.” “It’s not necessarily a personal experience for us,” she says. “But I think that it’s showing what can happen when you have that many eyes on you. We live in a culture where people are desperate for people to watch them all the time, and we think that something to aspire to is fame. This is a story about someone who never had that choice. He was rushed into this position from childhood, and he’s really suffering from the extremes of being somebody who’s spent their whole life in the public eye and what that takes from you, how little room there is to be human in that.”
Although the tone of the film borders on absurdist, what drew Reeves to the project was its sincerity. “Something that was really cool about the script was how comedic, or out there, it was, but also so truthful, honest or authentic in terms of the ambition and emotion,” he says.
For Diaz, Hill’s script was evidence that comedy and drama always go hand in hand. “You can’t really tell a story with just one emotion,” she says. “You have to have the rollercoaster of being human, our existential experience of ups and downs, laughing, crying. In this one, we’re striking a really good balance of how what something feels like on the inside and what it looks like from the outside are always two different things — which is very much what I think the culture around celebrity is. It’s viewing people as objects, but really the person who is being viewed is experiencing something very real as a human being.”
It is the long-term friendships between the characters played by Reeves, Diaz and Bomer that the three feel is the grounding force of the film. “If you’re lucky like Reef, you have friends like Kyle and Xander who can hold you accountable, but also forgive you and hold you to the fire a little bit and show you some grace,” says Bomer. “I think real relationships are important in terms of moral compass and your life and choices.” Adds Diaz: “There’s nobody who can reflect you back to yourself more than the people closest to you,” she says. “A bunch of strangers don’t know the whole story. You have to rely on the people who love you to take those cues from, I think.”
For the three actors, getting to explore these themes with each other was one of the biggest appeals. “There’s a lot of reasons why we, as actors, choose to do a film. It’s like stars align,” says Diaz. “Sometimes you sign on because you think that there’s a great opportunity to explore with other actors, with a director, with a writer that you really admire. And I think in this circumstance with these actors and with Jonah, it’s easy for me to go, ‘Yeah, I want to explore whatever this conversation’s going to be. It would be fun to do it with them.’”
It was also the first time since the 1996 crime comedy Feeling Minnesota that Reeves and Diaz reunited onscreen. “When we worked together 30 years ago, it was my fourth film. I was very green,” says Diaz. “Poor guy had to act with this young novice actor who was just starting out. So, I was happy to get the opportunity to work with him again now, 30 years later, after a little more experience. But we’ve seen each other over the years, always happy to see one another. He’s always been who he is now, just the loveliest human. I really enjoyed getting to do this with him and Matt and Jonah. It was pure joy.”
Another pop-culture icon Reeves looked forward to exploring the perils of fame with was Martin Scorsese, who joins Drew Barrymore, David Spade, Susan Lucci and Kaia Gerber as one of the people on Reef’s lengthy atonement list. “For me, that was a very special day,” says Reeves. “I’d had the chance to meet him over the years a couple of times, but in my wildest hopes, imagination and dreams, to act with Martin Scorsese is like, ‘What is happening?’ And he’s so good. There’s kind of a father-son thing going on there a little bit, and he’s playing a character that really supported me in my youth. Just to sit in those moments with him was very special.”
Much like the chuckles Outcome is meant to evoke onscreen, the cast and crew relished being able to laugh together during their shoot. “I have never laughed harder on a set in my life,” says Bomer. “The process Jonah uses as a director is very unique and liberating. I didn’t really know what was going to happen on any given day.” What was virtually guaranteed, whatever the day brought with it, was a grand old time among friends. “I mean, with Cameron and Matt, the days in the car, some of the stuff in the house, just playing, was just so great because there was the script and then there was improvisation,” says Reeves. “The dynamic that we had was really cool and fun — the way that we could all play off each other. Now, Reef Hawk is kind of a weirdo, so some days were more enjoyable to play him than others. All in all, it was such a special experience.”
Outcome, streaming on Apple TV