Crystal Ro, a writer and illustrator who was then on BuzzFeed's staff, published a short series in June 2019 that puts Keanu Reeves into nine classic Disney animated films. In each picture the backgrounds, costumes and princesses stay faithful to the original animation, but the prince wears Reeves' long dark hair, beard and calm half-smile. Every image came with a one-line joke that links the fairy tale to something from his real career, from The Matrix to his Canadian roots.
Below you will find all nine illustrations, what each joke refers to, and why this kind of fan art spreads so easily. The drawings are affectionate parody: they are not connected to Disney, to any casting news or to Reeves himself.
Why Keanu Reeves was the perfect subject
Reeves, born in Beirut in 1964 and raised in Toronto, has been acting since the mid-1980s. The Bill & Ted comedies, Point Break and Speed made him a star, The Matrix (1999) made Neo one of the most recognisable heroes of the era, and the John Wick films brought a second wave of action fame from 2014. Alongside the films, he has long been known for a modest, friendly public image and for supporting cancer charities after his sister's illness.
That mix of action hero and gentle, unassuming person is exactly what Ro plays with. The internet had already turned him into a meme more than once (the 2010 "Sad Keanu" photo of him eating a sandwich alone on a bench is the best known), and 2019 was a particularly busy year for him, with John Wick: Chapter 3, a voice role as Duke Caboom in Toy Story 4 and his surprise appearance for the video game Cyberpunk 2077. A gentle, slightly melancholic hero in a fairy-tale costume was an easy idea to love.
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The 1980s and 1990s princes
Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid
Here Reeves stands at the rail of the wedding ship from the final scene of The Little Mermaid (1989), arm raised in celebration beside Ariel in her white gown. In Ro's caption he introduces himself to the mermaid with a pun on the film's famous song, "Under the Sea." It is the most purely joyful picture in the set.
The Beast in Beauty and the Beast
Ro chose the ballroom scene from Beauty and the Beast (1991), after the curse is broken, with Reeves in the prince's blue-and-gold coat dancing with Belle in her yellow dress. Her joke is that this version would knock Gaston down in a fistfight and then spend his evenings reading Shakespeare with Belle in the castle library, a nod to both his action roles and his reputation as a reader.
Aladdin in Aladdin
Wrapped in a violet turban and robe, Reeves sits close to Jasmine in a scene based on Aladdin (1992). During the magic-carpet ride, Ro imagines him casually mentioning that he once made a film called A Walk in the Clouds, his 1995 romantic drama. The joke works because the carpet scene is literally set among the clouds.
John Smith in Pocahontas
The Pocahontas image copies the blue, moonlit palette of the 1995 film, with Reeves and Pocahontas facing each other almost nose to nose. Ro's caption has him rescuing her from the conflict with the English settlers and taking her somewhere calmer: Canada, the country where Reeves grew up. It is a light joke, and the film itself is very loosely based on real 17th-century history, which differs greatly from the Disney version.
Li Shang in Mulan
In the snowy camp setting of Mulan (1998), Reeves wears Captain Li Shang's armour and red cape while Mulan smiles at him. Ro twists the film's famous training song: he teaches her to fight and then hires her as his stunt double, a wink at the stunt-heavy fight training behind The Matrix and John Wick.
The classic and modern princes
Prince Charming in Cinderella
Cinderella's ballroom waltz from the 1950 film becomes a slow dance with Reeves in the prince's pale blue uniform. Ro's line is the simplest in the series: he would track Cinderella down himself to return the glass slipper, rather than sending a servant from house to house.
The Prince in Snow White
Based on the glass-coffin scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Disney's first feature-length animated film, this drawing shows Reeves leaning over the sleeping princess. Ro's caption imagines him asking her the famous red pill or blue pill question from The Matrix and then patiently explaining the film to her.
Prince Naveen in The Princess and the Frog
Reeves wears Naveen's teal jacket beside a radiant Tiana in her wedding veil, from The Princess and the Frog (2009). In this version, Ro says, he would not mind being turned into a frog at all, and would simply enjoy the experience. It is a gentle joke about his easy-going public persona.
Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty
The forest meeting from Sleeping Beauty (1959), with Reeves kissing Aurora's hand, closes the series. Ro points out that his horse-riding and fight training would make him well suited to the film's climax, when Phillip battles Maleficent in dragon form. The detailed tree trunks behind them echo the film's famously stylised backgrounds.
How the illustrations are made to work
Each picture follows the same recipe. Ro keeps the recognisable elements of the original frame (the princess, her costume, the colour palette and the staging) and changes only the prince. Because viewers already know these scenes well, the eye goes straight to the one thing that is different. Reeves' face is drawn in a slightly more realistic style than the princesses around him, which makes the mash-up funnier rather than hiding it.
The captions do the rest. Instead of simply saying "Keanu would be a great prince," every joke links a fairy-tale moment to a specific film or fact from his life, so fans get a small reward for spotting the reference. That is a useful lesson for anyone making fan art: the strongest pieces usually combine a familiar visual template with one specific, well-chosen twist.
Fan art, parody and respect for the original
Fan art that mixes celebrities and well-known animated characters is a popular genre online, and most artists present it as homage rather than as official work. Ro signs each image and shares it on her own channels, which is good practice. If you share pieces like these, linking back to the artist is the simplest way to support the people who make them.
As for Reeves himself, the series is part of a wider affection the internet has shown him for years, built on his films and on many stories about his kindness. The illustrations do not claim anything about the real man; they simply imagine how his familiar screen presence would fit into the stories many of us grew up with.
Sources: Crystal Ro, BuzzFeed (June 2019); Keanu Reeves, Wikipedia; Crystal Ro, official website. Illustrations by Crystal Ro.
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