Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger knew it was a big undertaking to launch a motorcycle racing team.
The Speed actor met Hollinger — who raced motorcycles as a child until age 34, eventually launching his own custom-bike building business — in 2009, when Reeves commissioned Hollinger to build a bike for him. Two years later, they founded ARCH Motorcycle, which aims “to challenge the perception of what an American motorcycle could be,” according to its mission statement. “Anything that compromises the ride, aesthetics, stance or function is treated as an opportunity to innovate and improve the design.” The company focuses on passionate customers who are looking for a “completely immersive riding experience.”
Some time later, the two began talking about getting into the racing business.
“We’re both a fan of racing,” Reeves tells The Hollywood Reporter over Zoom from Europe, where he’s currently touring with his band, Dogstar. “It was a bit of a fantasy, but I think, with the motorcycle and the engine that we developed with ARCH Motorcycle, it became, ‘Oh, maybe this can be a reality.’”
Reeves and Hollinger identified the Super Hooligan racing series, created by Roland Sands in conjunction with MotoAmerica, as one that would be a good fit for their bike. They also saw an opportunity to not only tell the story of their journey but also bring attention to the sport by filming it for a docu-series; the result, a six-part series titled Hooligans: The ARCH Racing Project With Keanu Reeves & Gard Hollinger, is set to debut July 12 on Samsung TV Plus (Reeves and Hollinger are among the exec producers on the show, which is Samsung TV Plus’ first-ever original docu-series under its Exclusives banner).
Early on, Reeves and Hollinger set about assembling a team, including riders Corey Alexander and Jeremy McWilliams, who are also featured in the TV series, which documents not only the successes but also the setbacks as the team navigates its first racing season.
“In the series, you see the travails and the challenges, and even with the idea that, we knew we wouldn’t have any quote-unquote success in the beginning, we had a lot of hope,” Reeves shares.
So were they worried about the possibility of failure when they set out to film their journey? “I had the belief that that we could be successful, but I knew that it wouldn’t come right away, and I knew that it would be a lot of hard work and luck,” Hollinger tells THR over Zoom from his office in Los Angeles. “But that’s what makes any story interesting, right? If it’s just all about success, is it boring? We knew that there would be a lot of travails and failure.”
Adds Reeves: “But there’s also what I think we came to learn, which is that there are more successes other than just winning.”
Agrees Hollinger: “There’s successes in the failures. If you look at it that way, and you learn something from it.”
“I mean, they’re not as much fun,” Reeves says with a laugh. “But they can be rewarding.”
Over the course of the racing season, the team became what Hollinger calls a “traveling family” — a feeling of community that extends to the entire sport. For his part, Reeves — who was much newer to the world of professional racing than his veteran counterpart — also felt that as well. “Everyone went through [challenges] …. for this common goal,” he shares. “You get to know each other, you get to lean on each other, you get to ask questions of each other.”
Asked if they felt any skepticism from the other teams, who are backed by the likes of motorcycle powerhouses including Harley-Davidson, Yamaha and KTM, Hollinger and Reeves say they both felt welcomed into the fold.
“I think some people were shocked to see us there because [the perception was that] we don’t build race motorcycles,” Hollinger shares. “But then they were happy and supportive, and you know — ‘Go ARCH.’” He said there is a camaraderie within the racing community wherein competitors tend to celebrate one another’s successes.
Reeves adds that he felt more of a curiosity from the other teams at first. “We experienced a lot of questions,” he recalls. “We had a lot of people coming around, taking a look at the bike, and it was kind of like they’d smile and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ And then they would just look at it and check us out, give us a sniff, give a look around. It’s easy to root for you when your bike’s breaking down and you’re coming in 10th place,” he quips.
After the ARCH team began seeing some success, Reeves says he heard another team joking that were going to try to build an “ARCH killer.”
In the show, Reeves asks Hollinger at one point, “What are we getting ourselves into?” Looking back, the duo say they were aware of the challenges, but “I didn’t expect that we would be trying to start our motorcycle with a scooter,” Reeves quips of one early race where everything seemed to go wrong.
Adds Hollinger: “The amazing thing about motorsports and racing in general is that there’s no delay. The race is on this day at this time, and if you don’t make it, you’re not part of it. So it’s not like a lot of other things where you can just kick it down the road another day or another hour. When the when the green flag drops, if you’re not there, you’re not part of it.”
The team deals with some stressful moments, as seen in the show. Hollinger says that his stress level is “pretty much at 11 all the time” during races. Reeves, who considers himself more of a source of positivity and encouragement for the team’s racing veterans and experts, jokes that he has “a unique pressure — the pressure of a cheerleader.”
Reeves gets more serious when he notes the real challenges and dangers inherent in the sport of motorcycle racing. He says the duo felt a lot of responsibility to their riders, Alexander and McWilliams, not only to deliver a motorcycle that could compete at the professional level but also to look out for their safety.
“The pressure and the expectation and the hope to give them a motorcycle, to give them a chance, race to race, and all the failing that we had, bikes breaking down, crashes — [there was] concern [to make] sure Corey was OK, that Jeremy was OK,” Reeves says. “Those pressures were the part that’s like really real.”
Hollinger agrees, noting that both of ARCH’s riders remain incredibly humble about the team’s successes, despite the big role they play in any wins or places.
“The riders are always very humble also; you tell them, ‘Great ride,’ and they’re like, ‘All I had to do is get on the bike and ride it,’” he marvels. “They’re the ones risking their necks, literally, and so we want to give them the best chance to be successful and a safe chance to be successful — as safe as you could be in that situation.”
Hooligans: The ARCH Racing Project With Keanu Reeves & Gard Hollinger premieres at 9 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 12, on Samsung Television Network, Samsung TV Plus’ flagship channel. New episodes will premiere every Sunday through Aug. 16.
In addition to Reeves and Hollinger, the executive producers are Sharon Hollinger, Carter Skeath and John Stevens, with Alan Bloom serving as showrunner. The show is produced by V10 Entertainment, whom Reeves praises for playing a key role in helping to find sponsors and working closely with Moto America.
