The country icon said she reunited with the actor years later when he knocked on her door and asked, “Do you remember me?”
Keanu Reeves may be more commonly known for embarking on excellent adventures and spending time in the Matrix, but Dolly Parton will always remember him as the little boy that would tag along with his mom, costume designer Patricia Taylor, to work each day.
The country-icon-turned-rocker, 77, told Drew Barrymore that she first met the John Wick star, 59, when he was a child because Taylor “did a lot of sewing for me” at the time, including crafting her legendary Playboy bunny suit for the magazine’s 1978 issue.
“I remember Keanu when he was just little,” Parton said in a bonus clip from the talk show published on YouTube. “She would bring him over to my house when we were fitting or when I would go to the shop where she worked.”
While she was aware of Reeves’ success as an actor, Parton said that she didn’t fully make the connection between the Matrix star and the little boy from her memory until the pair met face-to-face again years later.
“I was doing a show somewhere and somebody knocked on the door,” she said. “And [Reeves] said, ‘Do you remember me? I’m the little boy that used to sit at your feet while my mama was doing [your fittings].’
And I said, ‘Oh my god!’ I knew he had become a star, but it didn’t connect to me that that was who that was.”
Barrymore, who starred opposite Reeves in the 1986 made-for-television holiday film Babes in Toyland, then told Parton that Reeves once wore her Playboy outfit for Halloween. “Oh did he? He’s great,” Parton replied. “He’s the sweetest guy.”
Dolly Parton and Keanu Reeves.SONJA FLEMMING/CBS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Reeves recounted his Halloween homage to Parton while visiting The Late Show with David Letterman in 2003
The actor noted that he wore “the bustier” and “the ears,” but traded in the heels for a more comfortable trick-or-treating experience. “I didn’t do the cuff.
Or did I do the cuffs? I don’t remember,” Reeves remarked. “And I wore sneakers and like these fishnet things.”
Watch Parton remember meeting Reeves in the clip above.