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Keanu Reeves Reveals His Candid Advice for Aspiring Actors
Keanu Reeves is speaking out on behalf of a friend.
The Matrix actor sent a letter of support for director Carl Rinsch, asking a judge to reduce his jail time ahead of his June 29 sentencing. Rinsch was found guilty of stealing $11 million from Netflix in December.
“I am writing in support of Carl Rinsch in connection with his upcoming sentencing. I do not know the details of this case,” Reeves wrote in a letter, according to Us Weekly. “But based upon what I do know about Carl, I did want to take the opportunity to write on his behalf, in the hope that his sentence might be tempered with measures of leniency and mercy as well as justice.”
The 61-year-old explained that he had become friends with Rinsch after he directed Reeves in the 2013 film 47 Ronin—Rinsch’s directorial debut.
“I attended his wedding in Uruguay in 2014,” Reeves said. “Over the years I would periodically visit Carl and his wife at their Los Angeles home and catch up on and discuss life and art.”
The John Wick actor also shared that Rinsch had shown him an early cut of his show White Horse, the sci-fi series Netflix was paying him to create, but that he never finished.
“In my opinion, Carl is an exceptional artist, and White Horse, in the form in which I saw it, was a superb and visionary work of art, although unfinished,” Reeves wrote. “I am, of course, not a therapist or psychologist. I write instead as an artistic peer of Carl’s, and as a friend.”
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He added, “I do not intend to share this as an excuse or diminishment of what he has been found to have done, but offer this solely as perhaps an insight into why.”
Ultimately, Reeves asked the judge for “leniency” toward Rinsch.
The director was arrested in March 2025, according to a press release from U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York, and charged with “engaging in a scheme to defraud a subscription video on-demand streaming service,” laundering the money he’d received to make the show White Horse.
Between 2019 and 2020, Rinsch allegedly demanded money from Netflix to complete White Horse; however, that money was not spent on the TV series, according to the U.S. attorney.
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Lionsgate
According to the press release, Rinsch used the funds on cryptocurrency as well as “personal expenses and luxury items,” including over $1.7 million in credit card bills, $395,000 for hotel stays, over $3.7 million on furniture and antiques, as well as over $2.4 million on the purchase of five Rolls-Royces and one Ferrari.
Rinsch was convicted in December on one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering—both of which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He was also convicted of “five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity,” which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to Us Weekly.
Following the December verdict, Rinsch’s attorney Benjamin Zeman shared his thoughts on the decision.
“I think the verdict was wrong and I fear that this could set a dangerous precedent for artists who become embroiled in contractual and creative disputes with their benefactors,” he said, per Variety. “in this case one of the largest media companies in the world, finding themselves indicted by the federal government for fraud.”
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