Keanu Reeves Reveals The Actress He Actually Married During A Movie
This article is more than 2 years old
It has been almost three decades since Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stocker’s Dracula, starring Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, was released. But no matter how much time has passed, the debate over whether Reeves really got married to Ryder while filming a marriage ceremony scene in the film continues to this day. Well, the Matrix actor has put an end to all speculations and confirmed that he is married to Ryder “under the eyes of God.”
Bram Stoker’s Dracula saw Winona Ryder play the part of Mina Murray who is the reincarnation of Elisabeta, Count Dracula’s (Gary Oldman) dead wife. Once Dracula discovers Mina’s true identity, he leaves no stone unturned in separating her from Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves), her fiance. But the two lovers manage to evade his notice and manage to get married in Romania. While two actors exchanging wedding vows in a film is nothing new, Ryder and Reeves reportedly ended up getting actually married while shooting this scene as the nuptials were conducted by a real priest. So, are the two actors really husband and wife? The John Wick star certainly thinks so.
Recently, Keanu Reeves sat down for a chat with Esquire and addressed the long-standing rumor that he and Winona Ryder got legally wedded during the filming of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He confirmed that there were many real priests involved in the filming of the marriage ceremony scene. And he does believe that he and Ryder are indeed married. “We did a whole take of a marriage ceremony with real priests. Winona says we are. Coppola says we are. So I guess we’re married under the eyes of God,” Keanu Reeves jokingly shared.
Well, Keanu Reaves is not the first person who has “confirmed” this rumor. Back in 2018, Winona Ryder told Entertainment Weekly that she can “swear to God” that she and Reeves actually got married in Dracula. She had backed her claim by revealing that Francis Ford Coppola had brought over a real Romanian priest to carry out the wedding ceremony. Even Coppola has seconded her claim and shared with The Guardian that because of how authentically they shot the scene, Reeves and Ryder are really married.
Whether Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder are married or not, they have indeed been best friends since they worked together in Dracula in 1992 for the first time. In a chat with The Sunday Times (via The Independent), Ryder shared that there was a scene in Dracula where her character was supposed to break into tears when Gary Oldman’s Dracula turned into a pile of rats. As she was having trouble doing the scene, Coppola instructed Reeves and other cast members to call her names in order to offend her and make her cry but the actor refused to insult Ryder. This was the beginning of their friendship that has held strong across decades.
To date, Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder have starred together in four films- Dracula, A Scanner Darkly (2006), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), and Destination Wedding (2018). And here is to hoping that there will be future films that will bring together this iconic duo back to the silver screen.
