Ryan Reynolds unleashes his good ‘Guy’ in new movie
“Free Guy” is closer to the actor’s personality than Deadpool. Just ask his kids.
Ryan Reynolds is perhaps best known wearing the mask and tight spandex of wisecracking, foulmouthed comic book rascal Deadpool, though in real life he hews closer in personality to a whole other good guy: his cheerful, goldfish-greeting “Free Guy” persona named, yes, Guy.
“I bring a lot of myself to that,” Reynolds, 44, says of his newest role. “I like playing a character that sees things through the prism of innocence and optimism. I think we’re moving a little bit more in that direction anyway for our protagonists these days. Particularly, if you look at shows like ‘Ted Lasso,’ we’re not embracing that kind of cynical protagonist the way we used to.”
Even his fan-favorite mercenary has a sunny side: “Actually, weirdly Deadpool I wouldn’t say is a really cynical character. He’s also quite childlike. He just leans closer to the filthy end of that spectrum than Guy would.”
In director Shawn Levy’s action comedy “Free Guy” (in theaters Friday), Reynolds’ happy-go-lucky bank teller is seemingly ordinary until he meets super-cool British biker girl Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), learns he’s a background character in a video game world.
Reynolds, who has three daughters (James, 6, Inez, 4, and Betty, 1) with his wife, Blake Lively, is eyeing a return to an old favorite with “Deadpool 3”: “Not too much I can say about it right now, but it’s coming along,” the actor reports.
Before then, there’s plenty of Reynolds to be had: He and Gal Gadot star as rival criminals opposite Dwayne Johnson’s FBI profiler in Netflix’s “Red Notice” (streaming Nov. 12), and Reynolds re-teams with Levy for Netflix’s “The Adam Project” (due next year), about a man who travels back in time to get help from his teenage self.
Currently filming and playing a modern Scrooge in Apple TV+’s “Spirited,” a musical retelling of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” co-starring Will Ferrell and featuring music by songwriting duo Pasek and Paul (“The Greatest Showman”), Reynolds chats with USA
TODAY: Question: You and Blake attended the “Free Guy” premiere last week. What was it like returning to a little bit of normalcy?
Reynolds: There’s nothing normal about ever walking a red carpet for anything. In the best of times and the worst of times, it’s just a festival of anxiety. But we fake it well. (Laughs)
Q: “Free Guy” tackles a lot of themes, from the importance of free will to being your best self. Which resonates the most with you?
Reynolds: It’s pretty damn close to when we were making it. I just felt like the movie really spoke to everything that was going on. We were in this kind of constant and ink-black doom-andgloom news cycle that just felt so kind of unrelenting and also important at the time. It just felt like a really wonderful opportunity to escape that for a minute and be the prescription that movies were for me as a kid: I’d go in and see “Back to the Future,” something like that, and I would feel real wish fulfillment, like I was really taken someplace else for an hour and a half or two hours.
Q: In addition to Guy, you also play his super-muscular, not-very-bright upgrade named Dude. Which one do your wife and daughters prefer?
Reynolds: (Laughs) They prefer me, I would hope, as Guy. Dude is an impossible reality. There’s no hope that I will ever be Dude. But I did love that part of the film. Getting to fight my own best or worst self is pretty fun for me.
Q: What has filming a Christmas musical with Will Ferrell been like?
Reynolds: It’s really unfamiliar territory for me to shoot a musical with genuine singing and dancing. The music is incredible and then working with Will, he’s always been one of my comedy idols. They say never meet your heroes, but he lives up to every preconceived notion I would have about him in terms of being just an excellent human being.
Q: Guy’s a big fan of vintage Mariah Carey. What diva do you sing around the house?
Reynolds: Lately I’ve been a little obsessed with Gordon Lightfoot. I saw some special on him and it sent me down memory lane. I’m obsessed with a relatively new singer to the scene called Jake Wesley Rogers. Blake’s obsessed with him as well as are my kids. He’s just a really beautiful singer-songwriter who belts out some instant toe-tappers.
Q: Do your daughters have a favorite Ryan Reynolds movie yet?
Reynolds: I know “Detective Pikachu” is up there. They certainly haven’t seen any of the rated-R stuff. “Free Guy” is big because they’ve seen a couple of rough cuts of it and now they just saw the final version.Every time I step outside the door, they say, “Don’t have a good day, have a great day.”