Keanu Reeves shows excitement about teaming up with ex-Sofia Coppola on new project

Keanu Reeves and Sofia Coppola were eager to collaborate on a new project.

The House of Suntory, a Japanese whisky producer, commissioned Coppola, 52, and Reeves, 58, to work together on a project for the company's 100th anniversary. The celebrities posed on the red carpet together at a function in New York City on Tuesday to promote their Suntory Time homage movie.

Suntory claims that the statement "For relaxing times, make it Suntory Time," from Coppola's 2003 movie Lost in Translation, which was set in Tokyo, contributed to the brand becoming well-known at the time. In the 1990s, Reeves also appeared in a Suntory commercial.

Reeves, who dated Coppola in the early 1990s after meeting her on the set of Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, says working with the Marie Antoinette director was an easy yes.

"It was," he says. "It was cool [to get] a chance to work with Sofia Coppola and to work with [her brother] Roman Coppola on a kind of short commercial and then a docu-series. It was a really special opportunity."

About shooting the tributary film in Japan, Reeves adds, "It was wonderful, really wonderful. It was extraordinary to have the opportunity to spend time with people from Suntory, in terms of going to the founding distillery Yamazaki, then going and just meeting master blenders and all the craftspeople."

"I got to meet some of the artisans, Kabuki actors, calligraphists, being an outsider and getting to spend time with people and talk about their passion and their craft," he says.