When Keanu Rode His Norton From Canada To Florida To Deliver A Script

Actor Keanu Reeves is making box-office headlines with his groundbreaking John Wick movies, and while the Arch Motorcycle co-founder turns heads with his company's latest model, the Method 143, many may not realize it was his personal early '70s Norton Commando that he rode from Toronto to Florida to hand deliver Gus Van Sant's script for My Own Private Idaho to convince fellow actor River Phoenix to join the cast in December 1990.

Reeves and Phoenix met while Reeves was filming Parenthood with Phoenix's brother Joaquin in 1988. The two acted together for the first time in Lawrence Kasdan's I Love You to Death the following year. Gus Van Sant had written a screenplay loosely based on Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V, and wanted Reeves and Phoenix as his main protagonists. The story involves two friends, Mike and Scott, as they embark on a journey that takes them to Mike's hometown in Idaho and then to Italy in search of Mike's mother.