Octavia Spencer might be a world famous actress with three Academy Award nominations under her belt and one win for The Help, but her road to the top was hardly easy. Only in the last decade or so has she become a regular and recognizable fixture on our screens, despite having been working in the industry for almost a quarter of a century.
Early roles included small parts in episodes of ER, The X-Files and Malcolm in the Middle, as well as playing Woman in Elevator in Being John Malkovich, Check-In Girl in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Security Guard in Legally Blonde 2. It took the 50 year-old a long time to catch her big break, but now she’s firmly established as one of the most consistently watchable names in the business with a string of critical and commercial hits over the last few years.
Keanu Reeves, meanwhile, has been a big star for more than three decades now, but he’s always been known as one of the nicest guys in Hollywood, which is one of the major reasons why he’s still among most popular and beloved actors on the planet. In a recent interview, Spencer revealed that the John Wick star actually gave her a helping hand once when she was a complete unknown struggling to make it to an audition, explaining:
“It was about 25 years ago, The Matrix had just come out. I was on my way to pick up a script to read for an audition. And my car hadn’t been washed because I always parked underneath the trees, and there was bird crap all over the back of it. And it broke down in this posh area of Beverly Hills, and there was a cafe and all of these people are sitting out there and the cars were honking. Nobody would help me. All of a sudden, this guy comes up with his sunglasses and motorcycle helmet, and I knew immediately it was Keanu Reeves. And I, of course, was freaking out. He, you know, ‘You need some help?’. And I’m like, ‘Sure’. So I thought he was going to get into the car, I got behind the car to push. He said, ‘No, I’m going to push you out of the street, you get in’. So he pushed me out of the street, and then of course, when people saw it was Keanu Reeves helping me, everybody came down to help.”
These sort of stories about Keanu Reeves have become commonplace over the years, and every time you hear a new one it just reinforces his reputation as an all-round good guy. The 57 year-old always goes out of his way to help other people whenever he can, and little did he know 25 years ago that he was pushing the poop-covered car of a future Academy Award winner.