He's one of Hollywood's biggest stars today, but the road to success wasn't exactly smooth
for Ryan Reynolds.
He's the first to admit that there's been, quote, "nothing meteoric" about his career,
which has progressed slowly since he left Vancouver for Los Angeles.
From his early struggles growing up, to making movies that even he never watched, this is
how Ryan Reynolds went from college dropout to becoming Deadpool.
Honing his skills
Reynolds' father, Jim, was a former boxer and policeman who passed away in 2015.
And according to Ryan, he wasn't an easy man to live with.
Reynolds told GQ,
"Sometimes it felt a little like a military barracks.
You know, get the fold exactly right on the bed, make sure there's no speck of lint anywhere."
The fear of disappointing his father turned Reynolds into a self-proclaimed "really nervous
kid," but it also helped him to develop skills that would serve him well later in life.
He told the mag,
"I was extremely sensitive [and] incredibly perceptive.
[...] It was so acute that I really was able to jump into other people's skin."
45 minutes of college
As a teen, he landed a role on Nickelodeon's Fifteen, but after high school, the acting
gigs dried up and Reynolds worked two jobs to make ends meet.
He then enrolled in a college criminology course, but he lasted less than an hour, telling
Variety,
"I'm not being facetious.
I spent 45 minutes in college, and I turned around and said, 'I'm going to drive to L.A.
and try to get into the Groundlings.'"
Just before he made the move to California, he landed a role on The X-Files, though it
did little for his confidence.
"We gotta kick some butt.
Like I'm sure Bruno's doing in heaven right now."
Spoiler alert: it wasn't much of a role.
Still, Reynolds claims he got bad advice from director Rob Bowman, saying,
"He told me never to go to Hollywood because I'd never make it there.
[...] And secondly, that I could have a very small yet profitable career here in Vancouver
doing small parts."
But Bowman's discouraging words only made Reynolds all the more determined to go for
it.
Two Guys, a Girl and a breakout star
Reynolds' really big break came when he won his role on ABC's Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza
Place in 1998.
"The valve at the end of the colon that regulates discharge.
Is, uh...the poopie chute."
In 2016, he told Andy Cohen that he'd sign up for a reunion "in a heartbeat" because
he had so much fun making the show, which he credits with giving him the confidence
to make it as a movie star.
"That sitcom is, I know it's more en vogue to say that film is where it's at, and it's
great, but that job was so much fun for me."
Renamed after two seasons, Two Guys and a Girl aired for four years, providing Reynolds
with a steady income and lots of experience, which he would take to the big screen.
Party guy
After Two Guys and a Girl wrapped, Reynolds took on the title role in college romp National
Lampoon's Van Wilder.
The film was hammered by critics but became a cult favorite.
"I'm doing a human interest piece... on you."
"Well, I'm flattered.
I'd love for your piece to be on me."
Van Wilder put Reynolds on the map and led to numerous offers, but he told GQ,
"For years after that, I was Van Wilder.
It made me the party guy.
I would walk into a bar and people would start lining up the shots.
You could sum up my career at that point as a free shot at a bar."
Overcoming anxiety
In 2018, Reynolds revealed to The New York Times that the anxiety he experienced as a
child still plagues him today.
With two Deadpool movies under his belt and an X-Force feature on the way, he's at the
top of his game, but told the Times,
"I've always had anxiety.
Both in the lighthearted, 'I'm anxious about this' kind of thing, and I've been to the
depths of the darker end of the spectrum, which is not fun."
"What if I told you we can cure you, and give you abilities?"
"I'd say that you sound like an infomercial.
But not a good one."
After years of taking a "hard-knock" approach to his problem, he decided he needed to change,
saying,
"I realized it was time to just effectively light a match to my life and walk away.
[...] It's the best thing I ever did."
Today, he keeps his anxiety in check using the Headspace meditation app.
The Green Lantern curse
After his role in Blade:Trinity, Reynolds' fortunes were hit-and-miss.
He won acclaim for his work in The Nines, Definitely Maybe and Buried, but bombed with
The Amityville Horror, Just Friends, and Smokin' Aces.
When Green Lantern came around in 2011, he needed a hit, but didn't get it.
He said in an interview with Variety,
"I represented the death of the superhero for a while.
So, you know, after Green Lantern, in that category, I was pretty much unhirable."
Reynolds has mocked the movie on several occasions in the years since, both on talk shows and
on social media.
"If you could rate the Green Lantern on a scale of 1-10."
"Four, maybe?"
"You'd give it a four?!"
"Three or four?"
"You'd give it a three or four?"
"It didn't work.
One!
It's a one!"
And he didn't pull any punches when it came to poking fun at Green Lantern as Deadpool,
either.
"And please don't make the super suit green.
Or animated."
Career-saving leak
He lobbied hard for a decade, but it wasn't actually Reynolds that convinced Fox to move
forward with Deadpool — it was the fans.
The film got the green light after test footage leaked online and social media users went
nuts.
Reynolds told Variety,
"When the leaked footage got around the internet, it created this enormous groundswell.
I credit Twitter users, Facebook users, and Instagram users for getting this movie made."
With the failure of Green Lantern still fresh in their minds, Fox was hesitant to fund a
superhero movie fronted by Reynolds.
He admitted,
"Part of the reason Deadpool wasn't greenlit right away was certainly because of me.
If Robert Downey Jr. was playing it, I don't know how much greener a light you can get
to make a movie."
So, who actually leaked the footage?
For the longest time Reynolds suspected that director Tim Miller was behind it, but he's
now convinced that an unknown Fox employee got the ball rolling.
Reynolds told Yahoo!,
"The initial [leak] came from Fox, they think — someone recorded the footage on their
iPhone and then released it.
And then once that happened, somebody hacked into Blur Studios and got the original footage
in high-res and put it online."
The rest, as they say, is history.
"Bring it on, One Eyed Willie."
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