Things We Learned In 2021 About Nostalgic Heartthrobs

Keanu Reeves has a long-standing reputation as a very nice guy. It's not just idle talk, either. His actions are legendary on film sets.

After The Matrix became a blockbuster hit, he signed up for the two sequels. As the star, he was entitled to residuals from the original. Instead of keeping all the money he could have earned, he gave a huge portion of it to the trilogy's special effects crew. Reeves believed their work was so integral to the series' success that they deserved a big bonus. 

Heath Ledger, an avid chess player from the time he was a kid, once told MTV he played at least one game a day. Many of these games took place in New York's Washington Square Park, where the actor played matches against park regulars and talked smack with the best of them.

His love for the game merged with an interest in directing when he spoke with Allan Shiach about a chess-related project. Shiach had adapted a screenplay for The Queen's Gambit from Walter Tevis's 1983 novel. Before Ledger passed, he and Shiach were working on subsequent drafts of the project.

They were planning to make the movie at the end of 2008, but Ledger passed in January of that year, and the film version was put on hold. It would have been his directorial debut of a feature film.

Growing up, Tim McGraw didn't know who his father was. In fact, he went by Tim Smith after his mother married Horace Smith. But when he found out his dad was famous baseball player Tug McGraw after coming across his birth certificate when he was 11 years old, it gave him hope.

Rather than being angry that his father abandoned him and offered no financial support, Tim said, "It changed what I thought I could do with my life coming from the circumstances I came from... it made me think that blood is in my veins, so that ability is in there."

Tug finally acknowledged Tim as his son when the latter was about 18. Their relationship had its ups and downs, with years and memories to overcome. Despite his lack of affection or financial support earlier, Tug did help Tim get his music career started when he passed on Tim's demo to a producer at Curb Records.

Tug passed from brain cancer in 2003.

Johnny Depp's cinematic career as a heartthrob has spanned over 30 years, starting with the 1980s TV drama 21 Jump Street. In 1998, he starred in the film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. When the eccentric author passed in 2005, Depp dedicated himself to giving Thompson the funeral he always dreamed of, no matter the cost, which was reportedly $3 million.

Thompson apparently wanted to go out in the form of ash blasting from a cannon atop a giant tower shaped like a fist with two thumbs holding peyote. Hard to picture? Don't worry: It's on YouTube.

Thompson left the instructions in his will, and Depp made sure it happened. 

Depp's ex-managers, who claimed this conquest led Depp to "financial ruin," sued the actor. Depp responded:

All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out.

In 1986, when Tupac Shakur was a young teen, after spending a few years commuting back and forth, his family finally moved permanently from New York to Baltimore.

Shakur enrolled in the Baltimore School for the Arts and began to study acting and ballet, as well as participating in the Young Communist League USA. He was cast as the Mouse King in the Tchaikovsky classic The Nutcracker.

Although it may be hard to picture anyone other than Kevin Bacon angry-dancing in the warehouse in Footloose, Rob Lowe also auditioned for the lead role. Fortunately for Bacon, Lowe wasn't much of a dancer. Lowe joked that "Kevin Bacon owes me a lot" after his dance audition ended in a torn meniscus.

Lowe recalled in his autobiography:

The routine ends with a big running dive to the knees and a stage slide across the floor. I decide I’ll make up with enthusiasm what I lack in technique. The big finish approaches. I explode into a sprint, leap as high as I possibly can, and come down on my knees hard, skidding a good 10 feet across the floor. There is a grotesque pop that can be heard over the music, and my right knee explodes in pain. Within seconds it is the size of a Butterball turkey. I look up at the director and black out.

Lowe said the filmmakers softened the blow by telling him they would hire a professional dancer rather than an actor. But they eventually did hire another actor, Bacon.