Entertainment
10 Reasons Dudes Love Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds has come a long way from his beginnings as a teen soap opera star in Canada. He’s been married to two of the biggest stars in Hollywood. He’s been named the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. He’s played iconic comic book roles like Blade’s sidekick, the Green Lantern, and of course, Deadpool. It’s the latter role that has gone on to define his career and win over the hearts of a ton of dudes who have fallen bromantically for him. In honor of the release of Deadpool 2, here are the 10 reasons why dudes love Ryan Reynolds.
10. He owns up to his mistakes
Like everyone else in the world, and contrary to popular belief, Ryan Reynolds is not perfect – but he openly admits that, especially when it comes to the less warmly received entries on his filmography, like Green Lantern. He’s not one of these actors who pretends that the movie was great, even though it was obviously misguided. Sandra Bullock gave out copies of the All About Steve DVD at the Golden Raspberry Awards when she ‘won’ the Razzie for Worst Actress in an attempt to get them to reconsider their hatred for the film. That’s in poor taste. It’s a much classier move to make a meta, self-aware comedy years later that acknowledges these failures in its jokes – “Just don’t make the super suit green…or animated!” In a recent viral video where Deadpool apologized to David Beckham for making a joke about his voice in the first movie, Beckham acted confused about what the apology was regarding and thought the actor was apologizing for all of his terrible past movies, which he then goes on to list and Deadpool openly admits were “awful.” And Reynolds will own up to his mistakes out of character, too. He knows exactly what went wrong: “I don’t think anyone ever figured out exactly what it was. That isn’t to say the hundreds of men and women didn’t work their fingers to the bone to make it as good as possible. It also fell victim to the process in Hollywood which is like poster first, release date second, script last. At the time, it was a huge opportunity for me, so I was excited to try and take part in it.” There you go – honest, sincere, candid, brilliant.
9. He’s so Canadian
Ryan Reynolds may have become a huge Hollywood star who lives in Los Angeles and is known across the world for his movies, but he is still a Canadian, through and through. He was born in Vancouver, he went to Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and one of his brothers is an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Ryan Reynolds is as Canadian as they come. He’s even more quintessentially Canadian than other celebrities from the Great White North, like Seth Rogen and Jim Carrey and Rachel McAdams and – ugh! – Justin Bieber. In fact, Reynolds even confessed to being a stereotypical Canadian in an interview with Elle in which he was asked what his most Canadian trait was and pretty much said that his most Canadian trait was being Canadian. “You may be able to dig up a lot of sources who will deny this, but I’m polite. Generally, I care for other people. I always say ‘excuse me,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘I’m sorry.’” Reynolds also tweeted about his Canadian-ness recently when he captioned a video of his apology to David Beckham for the joke about his voice in Deadpool with, “Little known fact: Canadians are born with a black belt in apology.” He’s so Canadian that he got Celine Dion to do the theme song for Deadpool 2.
8. He showed us what college should be like
We all know that there is just one role that defines Ryan Reynolds now and that is Deadpool, but before all that, his first ever major leading role in a movie was that of seventh year senior Van Wilder in National Lampoon’s wacky college comedy. The movie was not well received by critics when it was first released, but audiences quickly took to it, since this was a guy who really showed college students and young people in general how to live, and it has gone on to become a cult classic. Van Wilder is the ultimate party animal. He showed us all what college should be like. For starters, the college he attended was Florida State University, which is widely regarded as the number one college for partying in the country. It is reported that more than 6,500 of its students are members of either a fraternity or sorority. And Van Wilder was its party king. Among the rare critics who liked it were L.A. Weekly’s John Patterson, who reviewed the movie in a relatively positive light as “an effervescent campus gross-out comedy that’s true to the amoral, anarchic spirit of Lampoon founder-editor and screenwriter Doug Kenney.” That sounds about right.
7. He’s a social media wiz
Much like fellow movie star Vin Diesel, Ryan Reynolds has more power to market his movies just from his @VancityReynolds social media accounts than an entire marketing firm hired for millions of dollars by a studio. He’s been crowned “the King of Twitter” by more than a few websites and publications and he’s constantly using the site to either promote one of his movies in hilarious manner or joke around. Even his bio is a joke: “Introducing people to the version of myself which tested highest in the focus groups.” His jokes are hysterical: “I’m not going to start drinking regular milk just because some asshat has a problem with public breastfeeding at the beach.” Sometimes his jokes are a little more tongue in cheek, like this one: “No matter which kids’ book I read to my screaming baby on an airplane, the moral of the story is always something about a vasectomy.” Come to think of it, a lot of his jokes involve regretting becoming a father – e.g. “Being a father is the single greatest feeling on Earth. Not including those wonderful years I spent without a child.” – but we know he’s only joking, because whenever he’s speaking sincerely, he’s talking about how his kids are the best things that ever happened to him. It’s just fun to joke about to 11 million Twitter followers.
6. He dated Scarlett Johansson
You know how back in the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe was the biggest sex symbol in Hollywood and every man in the world was infatuated with her? Well, today, that role is filled by Scarlett Johansson. Her lips, her green eyes, her voice, her blonde hair – the Sydney Morning Herald called her “the embodiment of male fantasy.” She’s been named the Sexiest Woman Alive on two separate occasions by Esquire and Babe of the Year by GQ. Maxim included her in their Hot 100 list for eight consecutive years. She has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The New Yorker’s film critic Anthony Lane has written that Johansson is “evidently, and profitably, aware of her sultriness, and of how much, down to the last inch, it contributes to the contours of her reputation.” David Fincher turned her down for the lead role in the Hollywood remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for being “too sexy.” She’s been ranked among the sexiest women in the world by magazines like FHM, Men’s Health, and Playboy. The point is, this is an attractive woman who a lot of guys would kill to be with – and Ryan Reynolds was married to her for three years.
5. He’s married to Blake Lively
After a rocky start to his romantic life with a failed engagement to Alanis Morissette and a short lived marriage to Scarlett Johansson, Ryan Reynolds finally found the one on the set of Green Lantern (so at least some good came out of that movie). He’s now been happily married to Blake Lively since 2012, they have two daughters together, James and Ines, and all over the internet, they’re a very prominent #RelationshipGoals celebrity power couple. One time, a reporter at a red carpet event told Reynolds that he was in love with his wife. Rather than fly off the handle in a jealous rage like most guys would, when the reporter told him, “I’m in love with your wife,” Reynolds replied, “Oh, wonderful. Me too.” Weird. Reynolds has a brilliant sense of humor with his wife, as he does with everything. Someone once asked him on Twitter what the best way to exact revenge against someone was and he told them, “Takes a long time to set up, but start a family with the person. Grow old together. They’ll never see it coming.” As with a lot of Reynolds’ jokes, this one is pretty tongue in cheek. He’s suggesting here that his entire life with Blake Lively and the kids they share is a part of some wider vengeful ploy. But we all know how much he loves his wife.
4. He’s a great dad
Everyone loves a good dad. Everyone loves a guy who loves his kids and pitches in and helps out the mom and raises them with good values. Well, that’s exactly what Ryan Reynolds is. He’s raising two girls, James and Ines, and their mother Blake Lively has said that he is “the father of [her] dreams.” He wasn’t always so confident as a father. At first, he was nervous about the pressures of parenthood, but who isn’t? That’s normal. We can all relate to his anxieties. “Early on,” he said, “I thought, am I going to be a good father? But I’m so much more patient than I ever imagined. I can comb a doll’s hair for six hours and suddenly remember to blink.” But he said, “Instincts will come to you at the weirdest places and times.” However, he did once say that he would rather “drink a piping hot bowl of liquid rabies” than take his daughters onto a plane. “I’ve always had empathy for parents, especially like [when they’re] flying…Before I had kids, I was always like, ‘God, that’s hard.’ You can see [the parents are] sweating and they’re nervous, because their kids are yelling and everyone’s mad at them…At two years old, they just have to rip all their clothes off and introduce themselves to everyone on the plane.”
3. He’s hilarious
Ryan Reynolds doesn’t just play funny characters in movies or know how to deliver funny lines in the script to their full comedic potential – he is just plain funny in real life. When he does interviews for TV or radio or a reporter catches up with him on the red carpet, he doesn’t stop joking. He has a terrific sense of humor – and it’s so absurdist. All of his jokes on Twitter are ridiculous, but so hilarious. Like when he celebrated getting his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a joke: “Weird how they write the name in ALL CAPS. Like I’m yelling at all the nice people walking by. For eternity.” A lot of his jokes, especially when it’s about his kids or parenting in general, have a devilishly sociopathic vibe, like “I’d walk through fire for my daughter. Well not FIRE, because it’s dangerous. But a super humid room. But not too humid, because my hair,” or “I’m teaching my daughter that the sun goes down each night because it’s mad at her. Probably gonna write a book on parenting at some point.” But he’s only joking and it’s hysterically funny. Dudes love a dude who can make them laugh, and that’s Ryan Reynolds for you.
2. He’s up for a good bromance
Obviously, Deadpool has become the defining role of Ryan Reynolds’ career and it’s only fitting, because Deadpool has a bromance with everyone in the comics. Also, as a pansexual, he hits on every sexy guy in the Marvel world, from Thor to Spider-Man to Wolverine, but he’s only joking. The same goes for Reynolds when he jokes around with his male co-stars on the press circuit. Deadpool had a whole buddy comedy series of comics with Cable, so it’s only fitting that on the press rounds for Deadpool 2, Reynolds has shown a serious bromance with his co-star Josh Brolin, who plays Cable in the movie. You can see hard evidence (pun intended) of this in the above video. Plus, Reynolds makes a lot of jokes about Hugh Jackman (like that gag involving Jackman’s balls, or “smooth criminals,” at the beginning of the first Deadpool movie where he’s telling the audience how he managed to get his own movie), another former co-star with whom he shares a wonderfully bromantic relationship. In a recent Instagram post, Reynolds can be seen lying on Jackman’s bed in his Deadpool costume, interrupting the video, and they share some banter. These guys are like best friends! That’s why dudes love Ryan Reynolds – they feel like they could be his best friend, too. Oh, and Ryan Reynolds kissed Andrew Garfield at the Golden Globes, too.
1. He’s Deadpool!
Ryan Reynolds doesn’t just play Deadpool in a couple of movies. He is Deadpool. He has embodied the role of the Merc with a Mouth like he has embodied no other character he has ever played before. This has now become the defining mark of his career – and the audience are happy to go along for the ride with him. The first Deadpool movie performed a heck of a lot better than any darkly comic, self-aware, R-rated superhero movie had any right to, and that is all thanks to the appeal of Ryan Reynolds and his serious commitment to getting the character right on film. He’s been doing the press rounds for the new sequel recently and he’s been making a lot of these TV appearances in costume and in character. If he was just an actor playing a character, then he wouldn’t be able to commit as deeply as that or improvise on his toes like that. If he was just an actor in a role, then he wouldn’t have a writing credit on this new movie. Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, and that’s yet another reason why dudes love him. They wish they were Deadpool, so they admire whoever is.