Keanu Reeves Saved Kate Beckinsale From An Embarrassing Wardrobe Malfunction
Keanu Reeves helped stop Kate Beckinsale's red carpet outfit from falling off in front of everyone.
Kate Beckinsale recently revealed that Keanu Reeves and Robert Sean Leonard helped her hold down a bodysuit that had come unfastened upon her arrival at her first-ever Cannes red carpet. The year was 1993, and Beckinsale was at the film festival for her cinematic debut, Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing. Entertainment Weekly reports that Beckinsale shared a photo on her Instagram account along with a re-telling of how she came to be in the awkward situation secretly depicted in the image.
In the photo, Kate Beckinsale is standing between Keanu Reeves and Robert Sean Leonard, alongside Denzel Washington, all of whom were her costars in Much Ado About Nothing. The four actors and Washington’s wife Pauletta had shared a limo to the red carpet, with Beckinsale’s wardrobe malfunction quietly occurring during the ride. The body suit that comprised the top of her outfit was one she had purchased at the airport Sock Shop, and it had come unfastened while she was sitting in the vehicle, threatening to roll all the way up her body.
As Kate Beckinsale tells it, she had no intention of rummaging around in her “undercarriage” while sitting in a limo with her costars, so she instead “quietly panicked.” As they were about to exit the limo, she whispered to Keanu Reeves and Robert Sean Leonard a quick explanation of her situation and entreated their help, which they immediately provided. In the posted image, she revealed, she is holding the front gusset of the bodysuit down while her costars are holding down the back.
Of course, Kate Beckinsale and Keanu Reeves maintained smiles during the awkward affair, and surely Robert Sean Leonard did as well, though in the photo, he appears as though he might be stifling a laugh. In her caption, Beckinsale has nothing but praise for her costars, who came to her rescue on “the biggest red carpet” of her life, even though they possibly didn’t fully understand the situation. The two actors “both jumped in to save me,” she says, “no questions asked.”
Of course, Kate Beckinsale was much better appointed in her appearance at this year’s fest, though Keanu Reeves and Robert Sean Leonard were not in attendance. Back in 1993, Beckinsale was making her debut as Hero in the Shakespeare adaptation, with Leonard appearing as her lover Claudio alongside Reeves’ Don John and Denzel Washington as Don Pedro. Though 30 years have passed, the story is a sweet one of a moment of kindness that avoided what could have been a profound embarrassment for the then-new actor.
Kate Beckinsale has certainly come a long way from that moment—and the scuffed Doc Martens she was sporting for the occasion—as has Keanu Reeves, both having become much bigger stars. For Reeves’ part, his continued success with the John Wick franchise will soon be joined by a Constantine sequel. Beckinsale has been the star of multiple Underworld films and is currently appearing as Christiana Dior in Fool’s Paradise.
It’s lovely that Keanu Reeves and Robert Sean Leonard’s kindness toward Kate Beckinsale is so fondly remembered and can now be shared by her as a tribute to her former costars. Reeves might have been a villain in Much Ado, but at that moment, he and Leonard became heroes for their Hero.
