9 Strangest Film Casting Choices (That Actually Worked)

Keanu Reeves has had a weird career to say the least, filled with ups and downs but mostly with good performances and constant public reinvention. He got his big break as one half of Bill and Ted and then reinvented himself as an action hero in movies like Point Break, Speed, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. He even tried to be a Shakespearean actor to be in Much Ado About Nothing.

But while he never failed to impress audiences with his comic timing and good performances, many suspected that he would never find his niche in Hollywood and would always be relegated as a solid B-list celebrity. The only people who seemed to disagree were the Wachowski siblings who, in 1999, realized Reeves's natural monotone and facial control made him perfect to be the leading man in an experimental action film they were writing.

And when they announced that the guy who said "Whoa" was going to be the leather-clad badass in a philosophical cyber-thriller, the world collectively laughed. But then The Matrix went on to be one of the most important movies ever made and set the tone for blockbuster film-making for the twenty-first century, due in no small part to Reeves's now-iconic performance as the chosen techno-messiah Neo.