Keanu Reeves sees demons in his latest movie, Constantine, and has his sights set on more ghostly goings-on for his next project. He talks to Steve Pratt about bonding with the bard.

If anyone out there is contemplating making a film out of Shakespeare's Scottish play, then please bear Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves in mind when you're casting.

The name of the star of The Matrix trilogy and Speed has been mentioned in connection with a fresh screen version of Macbeth and, on a trip to London to talk about his latest film Constantine, he admits that he's interested in bonding with the Bard.

That's as far as it goes. Plans are no further advanced than putting forward the idea. "I'm just throwing it out to the universe and saying, 'does anyone want to do this?'," he says.

Does this mean we can expect Reeves - whose first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian - getting his voice round a Scottish accent? "We'll have to see," he says, before treating us to a short burst of Macbeth's "Tomorrow, tomorrow..." speech in an accent described by a listener as the Scottish equivalent of Dick Van Dyke's laughable cockney tones in Mary Poppins.

Reeves looks suitably embarrassed and says, passing judgement on his own bid to speak Scottish, "I don't think so."

He's not an actor you readily associate with joking about. During his 20 years as a professional actor, he has tended to cultivate, intentionally or not, the image of either a cool dude, a legacy of his Bill And Ted movies, or blank-faced action man.

He's on Hollywood's A-list but has made as many bad films as good, had as many box office misses as hits, as many bad reviews as rave ones. The success of The Matrix in 1999, and its two sequels, did much to boost his career. But for every Matrix and Speed, there was a Johnny Mnenomic and Feeling Minnesota.

Throughout it all, Reeves has remained seemingly the same, still unable to comprehend the fact that he's famous and known the world over. Fans who recognise him and ask for autographs still surprise him. "I don't expect it," he says. "I'm just an actor. When I'm on the street, I'm not thinking of myself as an actor, just a guy. It's still kind of surreal."

Such an attitude from a 40-year-old who's spent half his life in Hollywood seems incredible, but Reeves genuinely seems still to be bowled over by the celebrity side of acting.

"I remember the first time someone asked for my autograph, it was like, 'okay'," he recalls. "I remember one time I was in Westwood and this guy had seen River's Edge. I was with a girlfriend and we went inside and he said like, 'it's free'. I said, 'why?' and he said, 'River's Edge'. It's cool to see people and say hi and talk about the work whether they like it or not."

He does admit to being better at being famous than he used to be in his early days in Hollywood. "I'm more used to it to a certain extent, although I don't like it any better," he says.

"I like my privacy because that allows me to move in the world. I don't want to be like a man in a castle. I don't want to be afraid of the world because I love it so much being in the street."

Getting serious and talking about his art makes him more comfortable and relaxed. "I'm still interested in the process of acting," he says. "I've heard Anthony Hopkins speak about that. The road to understanding is such a long road and there's so much more to know."

His latest screen character in Constantine is something of an outsider too. John Constantine is cursed with the ability to see demons walking the world in human skin. He goes to Hell and back after committing suicide, being revived and returned to a living Hell on earth.

The story, which finds Constantine attempting to take as many demons as possible back to Hell with him, is taken from the graphic novel Hellblazer, in which the hero is blond and English. Reeves can't claim to be either.

"When I came to the project, I didn't know the comic book and the script had already been changed," he explains. "It's not like when we make the script we're taking away the comic book version of Constantine.

"Hopefully, what we take is the spirit of Constantine, because that's the strength of the piece. This guy, this story, the way he deals with the world. He's so lovably awful. He's a rascal, but he's trying."

Comic book fans are notoriously possessive of their characters, something of which he was aware while shooting the movie. "I'd always ask myself, 'is there enough Constantine in my Constantine?'. In other words, is it hard-boiled enough?," he says.

"When my character puts his cigarette out in a pool of his own blood, I thought we had some Constantine there. Hopefully, people who are possessive about the character will be entertained by this version. I think we captured the spirit of it, and that was important."

He disputes that Constantine is too similar to The Matrix because it's not a "special effects kind of film", he feels.

"It's definitely mythological. It's in the classic tradition of the hero's journey. I like those stories. I didn't feel like I was repeating myself with this character. They're completely different films. Constantine is really interesting because he's really self-interested, the way he's dealing with the world, the guy's trapped."

Mostly, his action movies have performed better at the box office than his smaller, less mainstream pictures. Becoming an action hero was never something to which he aspired after quitting school at 17 to become an actor.

"That really happened for me on Point Break. That was my first foray into action movies," he says. "Then I guess I went from there into Speed. But I always think of those roles as character roles. And the films that they were in looked at it that way too."

l Constantine (15) is showing in cinemas now.