Keanu Reeves’ Ethnicity and Family Roots

Keanu Reeves is a Canadian actor and musician who played Neo in The Matrix and the title role in the John Wick films.

Father’s side

Mother’s side

English Native Hawaiian Chinese Portuguese

Nationality: Canadian
Born: September 2, 1964, Beirut, Lebanon
Birth name: Keanu Charles Reeves

Keanu Reeves on stage with his band Dogstar at Tons of Rock in June 2026 — Photo: Birgit Fostervold, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Father’s sideBoth sidesBorn in Beirut, Lebanon

What is Keanu Reeves’ ethnicity?

Keanu Reeves is of English, Native Hawaiian, Chinese and Portuguese descent. His mother is English. His father is an American from Hawaii whose family has English, Native Hawaiian, Chinese and Portuguese roots. Reeves himself is Canadian.

He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, because his mother was working there when she met his father. After his parents divorced in 1966, she took the family to Australia and New York and finally to Toronto, where Reeves grew up.

Where are Keanu Reeves’ parents from?

Father’s side

Grandfather

Samuel Nowlin Reeves

Native HawaiianPortuguese

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii

Born 1921, youngest son of Charles Armistead Reeves and Rose Lokalia Miguel

Grandmother

Momilani Sarah Victor

ChineseNative Hawaiian

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii

Born 1924. Married Samuel Nowlin Reeves in 1942. Died in 2014

Father

Samuel Nowlin Reeves Jr.

Native HawaiianChineseEnglishPortuguese

Born 1942. American with roots in Hawaii

Mother’s side

Grandfather

Not publicly documented

Grandmother

Not publicly documented

Mother

Patricia Taylor

English

Born in Essex, England

Costume designer and performer

Keanu Reeves

Born in Beirut, Lebanon

Father’s side

The Asian and Pacific side of the family comes through his father. Reeves told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 2013 that his grandmother was Chinese and Hawaiian and that he grew up around Chinese art, furniture and food. He added that he loved haiku, anime and kung fu films as a child.^[1]

He rarely talks about his ethnicity. When NBC News asked him in 2021 about headlines that described him as a person of color, he answered, “I don’t know if I agree with that statement. But I don’t not agree.” NBC News also reported that he considers himself Asian.^[2]

Through his father he belongs to the Reeves family of Kuliʻouʻou Valley in east Honolulu. When the Honolulu Advertiser portrayed the family in 2002, it counted more than 500 relatives and named Keanu Reeves as its one international star, who had visited the valley as a child. The family goes back to Charles Armistead Reeves, who came from Tennessee, and Rose Lokalia Miguel, who was of Native Hawaiian and Portuguese descent. They married in 1903, raised nine children and in 1912 bought nine acres of homestead land in the valley. In 2002, 29 families of their descendants still lived on that land.^[3]

Keanu’s father, Samuel Nowlin Reeves Jr., comes from this family.^[4] His grandfather Samuel Nowlin Reeves was born in Honolulu in 1921 as the youngest of Charles and Rose Reeves’s nine children.^[3][5] In February 1942 he married Momilani Sarah Victor, the Chinese-Hawaiian grandmother Keanu has spoken about, and in September of that year their son Samuel Nowlin Reeves Jr. was born.^[6][7] Under her later married name, Momilani Sarah Abrahams, she died in Honolulu in 2014 at the age of 90. Her obituary in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser lists her son Samuel.^[8]

His parents separated when he was a toddler, and he grew up without his father.

Mother’s side

His mother, Patricia Taylor, is English. She worked as a costume designer and performer, according to his biography on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and she raised Keanu and his sisters while moving between several countries.^[4] Her family comes from Essex, east of London, as Reeves told Jonathan Ross in 2015.^[9] She married three more times, and Reeves grew up mostly with his mother, his stepfathers, his grandparents and nannies in Toronto.