It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, pan, bi, or any number of sexual identities: when it comes to vintage photos of a stunningly hot male celebrity, most of us are on the same page. Beauty is beauty, and few who have walked this Earth have been of a calibre to match the otherwordly gorgeousness of Keanu Reeves in the 90s.
We’ve written before about Reeves’ frenzy-causing gay makeout moment in the 1984 play “Wolfboy,” and today the Internet has gifted us something just as exciting. It’s an Annie Leibovitz photo of Reeves from a 1995 Vanity Fair cover shoot, and all I can say is *Tex Avery cartoon wolf whistle.*
The spiky hair, the insouciant gaze, the moustache…there are simply no words. This belongs in the Louvre—fight me!
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RelatedKeanu Reeves: melting our hearts since the 80s.
As one astute X user said: “amazing top surgery healing.” That’s right: that chest is giving 6 months post op and it belongs on every top surgery moodboard from this moment on.
This shoot took place in 1995, which means that it was after right after Speed but possibly before Johnny Mneumonic—so not quite peak twink-era for Keanu, but pretty close. I know this is incredibly important context and very necessary for fully appreciating this photo!
On the Vanity Fair cover, Reeves was photographed wearing tight leather pants and a nipply white tee. Again—very important information!
“The buzz cut has grown out,” writes Michael Shnayerson in the story’s opening paragraph. “The strong jaw sports three days’ stubble. He’s let the action-hero muscles go, too, and, as casually as he seemed to come by it, the chance to be his generation’s Schwarzenegger or Stallone.”
I mean…I beg to differ! But of course no one foresaw the coming glory of the John Wick franchise back in 1995.
Still, this photo shoot was destined to be the gift that keeps on giving, even 19 full years later.