‘DEADPOOL 2’ IS ABOUT KINDNESS. REALLY

“Deadpool” star and producer Ryan Reynolds sees the sequel about the talkative mutant mercenary hit theaters today. We recently talked to him about the role and the limits of the character’s irreverance.

Q: Is there anything that is off-limits for Deadpool? A:

Not really. To make a great rated-R comic book film you’ve definitely got to push the boundaries a little bit and we leave that to the editing process to figure out what we want to keep and what we don’t. Tone is so critical in these movies and at the heart of “Deadpool” is always a very emotional story. You have to circle around that before you think about comedy bits or trying to incite reactions or that sort of thing. So “Deadpool 2” is really, at its core, about how one act of kindness can change the world.

Q: That’s very sweet and sincere! And here I was thinking the most sincere thing about “Deadpool” was the Wikipedia page. Everything else from the logline to the marketing leans into the irreverence of it. A:

Deadpool at his heart is sort of like a child. Like, yeah he can be vulgar, yeah he can act out but at its core there is a certain innocence to other aspects of him and I think that is something that’s really important with the character. He sees the world through the prism of a child’s eyes sometimes and that’s also why he’s tempestuous and obnoxious and misguided so much of the time too.