TORONTO — Keanu Reeves remembered Patrick Swayze happily leaping out of planes during the filming of Point Break. Drew Barrymore called the Dirty Dancing actor “the nicest man that one could ever meet.” And Rob Lowe felt like he lost a brother.
Stars at the Toronto International Film Festival paused to share their memories of Swayze, who died on Monday at age 57 after battling pancreatic cancer.
Reeves, in town to promote The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, spoke of Swayze’s “lust for life in his craft.” The pair appeared in the 1991 surfing film Point Break.
Swayze made over 30 skydiving jumps during the course of filming, Reeves said.
“He wanted to experience life and . . . he wanted to take the opportunity that the film gave him. . . . In the film you see him jump out of the airplane and do some flips falling to the ground,” recalled Reeves.
“He did it with an open heart. To me he was very generous. And to everyone around him, he just lit up a room.”
Barrymore, in Toronto to screen her directorial debut Whip It, said she met Swayze when she was seven years old, adding he was a hero to her and her friends because of his role as Darry Curtis in the 1983 teen flick The Outsiders.The film, based on a novel by S.E. Hinton, made pin-ups of Swayze as well as co-stars Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio.
Barrymore and Swayze ultimately worked together in the 2001 movie Donnie Darko, and the actress said her co-star was “the nicest man that one could ever, ever, ever know.”
“Our blessings are with the people around him that knew him and loved him the best,” she said.
Lowe shared his memories of Swayze on Monday night on the red carpet for his festival film The Invention of Lying.
In addition to The Outsiders, the two appeared together in the hockey movie Youngblood.
“Patrick lived a thousand lifetimes in one life,” Lowe told Entertainment Tonight. “He played my brother twice, and so I feel like I lost a brother.”