Keanu Reeves in a black suit with a salt-and-pepper beard at a film premiere with a yellow logo on the backdrop.
Gossip

Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves Talked About How Rich People Don’t Do Things for the Public Anymore

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Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves sat down with Aziz Ansari and Keke Palmer for an Esquire roundtable to promote Good Fortune, the Ansari comedy about wealth and gig-economy struggles. The conversation turned to income inequality, and Rogen and Reeves landed on the same complaint: rich people used to build things the public could actually use, and they’ve stopped.

Rogen’s pitch was that a century ago, outsized fortunes turned into libraries, observatories, and museums anyone could walk into. His example of how far that’s fallen: a Tesla-branded diner in LA where you still have to pay for a smash burger. “You don’t need burger money when you’re the richest guy on earth,” he said, before pivoting to Mark Wahlberg and Wahlburgers with, “I’m sick of these billionaires charging us for burgers.”

Keanu Reeves with dark spiky hair and a short beard wearing an all-black suit at a premiere event with a yellow logo backdrop.
Keanu Reeves sporting a dark suit and salt-and-pepper beard at the New York premiere of AppleTV+’s ‘Outcome’ on April 6, 2026. Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images.

Reeves jumped in with his own examples, calling out “Libraries! National parks!” Ansari pushed back that some still do it, pointing to the Sackler family, whose museum donations came from Oxycontin money. Rogen’s frame was the Gilded Age model: Andrew Carnegie alone funded roughly 2,509 public libraries, many still open, with his name on the buildings. Today’s largest fortunes tend to route through private foundations, political causes, or personal projects instead.

Seth Rogen wearing black-framed glasses, a dark plaid blazer, white shirt, and navy striped tie at a film premiere.
At the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles, Seth Rogen attends the June 23, 2026 premiere of ‘The Invite.’ Photo by Valerie Macon / AFP via Getty Images.

Plenty of people noted that everyone at that table is already rich. Rogen co-founded the Alzheimer’s charity Hilarity for Charity in 2012, and Reeves has a long history of quiet donations, including a reported chunk of his Matrix salary to leukemia research tied to his sister’s illness.

Multiple fictional one-billion-dollar bills scattered on a surface, each reading 'United States of Earth' and featuring a portrait of a founding-father-style figure.
A spread of novelty “One Billion Dollar” Federal Reserve notes issued by the fictional “United States of Earth,” each bearing a portrait reminiscent of George Washington. Credit: Made with Google AI.

The roundtable was recorded for Esquire in September 2025; the clip resurfaced this week.

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Keanu Reeves in a black suit with a salt-and-pepper beard at a film premiere with a yellow logo on the backdrop.
Keanu Reeves with dark spiky hair and a short beard wearing an all-black suit at a premiere event with a yellow logo backdrop.
Keanu Reeves sporting a dark suit and salt-and-pepper beard at the New York premiere of AppleTV+'s 'Outcome' on April 6, 2026. Photo by Angela Weiss AFP via Getty Images.
Seth Rogen wearing black-framed glasses, a dark plaid blazer, white shirt, and navy striped tie at a film premiere.
At the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles, Seth Rogen attends the June 23, 2026 premiere of 'The Invite.' Photo by Valerie Macon AFP via Getty Images.
Multiple fictional one-billion-dollar bills scattered on a surface, each reading 'United States of Earth' and featuring a portrait of a founding-father-style figure.
A spread of novelty "One Billion Dollar" Federal Reserve notes issued by the fictional "United States of Earth," each bearing a portrait reminiscent of George Washington. Credit: Made with Google AI.