Ryan Reynolds is putting his favorite role first: “dad.”
The “Deadpool” star, 48 — who shares daughters James, 9, Inez, 7, Betty, 5, and son Olin, born in 2023, with wife Blake Lively — revealed that his priority is being present in his family’s lives over continuing the action comedy films.
“Honestly, my feeling is that the character works very well in two ways. One is scarcity and surprise. So it had been six years since the last one, and part of the reason is that it swallows my whole life,” Reynolds told Andrew Garfield in an interview for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” published Monday.
He added, “I have four kids, and I don’t ever want to be an absentee [dad]. I kind of die inside when I see their faces and they do a sports thing or something and I missed it.”
Along with not wanting to miss a moment with his children, the actor got candid on why the fate of “Deadpool” is a complicated one.
“I don’t know what the future of ‘Deadpool’ will be,” Reynolds admitted, “but I do know that we made the movie to be a complete experience instead of a commercial for another one.”
In 2024, Reynolds was able to bring his character back to life for “Deadpool & Wolverine” alongside Hugh Jackman.
“Disney and Marvel, they were so supportive from the jump,” he recalled. “I think I had one line that Bob Iger wanted out of the movie, and we took it out… I’ll never repeat it.”
“I promised I wouldn’t… They were incredible partners. It was meant to be, because the first pitch I had for Marvel and Kevin Feige five years ago was a ‘Deadpool-Wolverine’ movie in the ‘Rashomon’ style, which is his perspective, then mine, then an objective… And they said no.”
After being turned down, Reynolds went back to pitch what he deemed “the most idiotic movies.”
“One was a Sundance movie I pitched them — no special effects, no conflict,” Reynolds stated. “And then I pitched one where it’s a two-hander with me and the hunter who shot Bambi’s mom. Their answer was ‘We don’t touch Bambi, Ryan.’… So it was like a year and a half of tap dancing until Hugh called and said, ‘I want to come back and do this.’”
While talking with Garfield, 41, the pair also took a moment to reflect on their iconic kiss at the Golden Globes.
During the 2017 award show, the pair shared a kiss after Reynolds lost out on the best actor award to Ryan Gosling’s performance in “La La Land.”
“The last time I saw you was the Golden Globes,” the dad-of-four said to the “Spiderman” actor during their conversation. “Garfield was sitting beside me, and he goes, ‘Hey, if they call your name and you win, don’t kiss your wife [Blake Lively], just kiss me.”
“And of course, Gosling absolutely did not deserve it,” Reynolds joked before clarifying: “I’m a genuine nutty fan of his.”
“I love that we were just sitting there and were just like, ‘Ah, let’s do it anyways,’” he continued, recalling how the Golden Globes cameras only captured the moment in a wide shot across the room.
Viewers didn’t realize they had kissed until later on in the night.
Garfield confessed to Reynolds he was “glad that you were you were game” to share a smooch, even as a joke.
“I also retrospectively felt a little bit insensitive towards Ryan’s moment,” Garfield quipped, as Reynolds agreed, before being thankful for the wide shot.
“Nobody actually noticed until later and it was actually kind of perfect,” the star added.
