Ryan Reynolds

Host: Hi everyone. Welcome to Talks at Google. Today it is my pleasure to welcome Ryan Reynolds for Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds: Right. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Very nice to be here. Thanks for joining us. Yeah. I feel like I'm rubbing shoulders with real power.

Here at Google. Love it. Yes. Yes. Host: Ryan, how excited are you for people to see this movie? Ryan Reynolds: I'm. I could not be more excited, actually.

I'm 11 years excited. I When I talk about it, I always is just grateful. I'm wearing an adult diaper.

The, This movie has been a, just the biggest pain in the ass to get made, and somehow, some way, the movie gods looked down on us and made that happen through, a number of illegal transactions. Not the least of which being, our test footage leaking onto the internet, accidentally about, two years ago, and that's what gave us the green light.

So I'm thrilled to talk about Deadpool movie, 'cause I never thought Deadpool would actually be, would exist. It's, it's been an 11-year thing, and it's the worst relationship I've ever been in. But we're happily married now, and and we're, we're expecting.

Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Host: Would it be fair to say the internet helped make this movie happen? Ryan Reynolds: The. No, it would be, it would be absolute fact to say that the internet.

The internet is why I'm sitting here talking to you quite literally. It was, the fans, overwhelmed 20th Century Fox Studios with hate mail. I'm sure other illegal substances filled in sorts of, all sorts of containers.

They were, they were vicious, and they so overwhelmed Fox with feedback, positive feedback about a Deadpool movie that yeah, here we are. With a relatively short order they were, they were basically said, "Go make your movie, and leave us alone." Because we we were sending emails to.

We sent emails to the heads of the studio that you would never send to the head of a major film studio. They were just, like, just borderline illegal. So, yeah, they.

I think they were just happy to say, "Here's the green light. Now please leave us alone." Host: when were you first introduced to the character of Deadpool?

Ryan Reynolds: I was on a set. I was on the movie Blade: Trinity, which, I hope, I hope most of you have not seen. But No, I there's some, there's some fun parts to that movie.

But it's, it's, it was a movie where I got to have a lot of fun. I got to do the movie with my friends. It was certainly the movie was fraught with a lot of, a number of different frustrations that sometimes big movies can have.

But I played a character in that movie that I guess resembles Wade Wilson in Deadpool, and I know, and a rival executive at another studio said, "I saw a little piece of Blade, and you know, you're Wade Wilson. You're Deadpool." And I didn't know at the time. This is in 2004.

I didn't know who Deadpool was, and he said, "Trust me. If they ever make a movie of, about Deadpool, you're the only guy that can play Deadpool." So he sent me over all these comics, and I'm not a big comic book guy, but I really gravitated toward Deadpool.

I fell in love with Deadpool. The first, issue I opened up, I. Not making this up, I was on the panel.

Like, in the comic it said, Deadpool was saying, I. Somebody asked him what he looks like. He says, "I look like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and a Shar Pei."

So I just I kept reading them all, and I was just so in, I fell so in love with this character. He was, like, meta. He breaks the fourth wall, addresses the audience.

He knows he's in a comic book. I mean, you know, in the, in the film Deadpool makes fun of Ryan Reynolds, and I love that. I love that he gets to do that.

It's a, it's a, it's a kind of a groundbreaking, genre-bending property, and the fact that a studio let us make it, not just let us make it, but let us make it as a rated R movie was just, I mean, crazy. I couldn't believe it, Host: so. It's, I think, I think Deadpool the comic character is definitely very self-aware, Yeah.

You guys very much embrace that in terms Yeah, we did. Yeah. Pop culture and Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of

Cinematic history Ryan Reynolds: and. There's a ton of pop culture references in it. And there's like, the movie has over 100 Easter eggs too.

I mean, there's just the little things like that. Some things that you may not see that I don't know if we'll, if we ever get the opportunity to shoot another Deadpool movie or another 10, if I have my way, I'll use in those. So I don't wanna really give them away, but there's, there's so many great little Easter eggs.

It was so much fun to plant all these things in the movie. Host: Of what you can tell us, what was one of your favorite things to film for the movie? Ryan Reynolds: Oh God, of what?

The. Probably my favorite scene in the There's a scene where Deadpool, attacks another X-Man, and I just like that in this moment we're really embodying the moral flexibility of the character. I mean, that's one of the things that I personally love about Deadpool so much, is that he ostensibly looks like a superhero, but he's morally flexible in every way. Like, and that's, that to me is just.

You you know, you get a lot of superheroes that are tough and that talk like this, and they. Yeah, you know. But Deadpool's, like, he genuinely is a guy that'll just sort of help out whoever has the fattest wad of cash, and I love that about him.

And so there's a scene where he just, his his ego gets bruised, and he just attacks this X-Man named Colossus, and the scene, He ends up breaking every bone in his body attacking Colossus, and I just love that scene because he just never shuts up. The whole time he just keeps this running editorial going of everything that's happening, and it's, that to me was a lot of fun, so.

Every bone. It Yes. He's not Graphically too. Host: Yeah. Exaggerating. Yeah, what's, what's one of the things that, you did in the preparation process that you weren't sort of expecting to have a large effect on playing the part?

Ryan Reynolds: The prep for me was easy. I it was basically being eased out of my mother's womb. And then, being fed enough to grow into adulthood, and then beginning filming.

I mean, I to me it was just, it was a matter of that marriage between myself, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick, and just finding these two writers that so understood everything that we were trying to do. And those guys have been such a privilege to not only to know, but to work with.

Also, the thing I love about Deadpool is the marketing campaign is an extension of the film, which is not normal. You know, most times you when you have a character that breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly, the possibilities for a film are obviously limitless, but so is the marketing. So for me, the marketing's been a lot of fun.

We've been shooting. I think we've shot over 40 viral videos. Maybe only 12 or 15 we've released that we have so many. I mean, it's just an embarrassment of riches.

But half the time it was just me and my iPhone just, you know, shooting myself at the trailer or wherever and you know, while we were shooting. So, that part's been amazing. Host: I yeah, I think you guys have done a great job of building the excitement amongst the fans.

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, it's hard. Well, not that many people knew about Deadpool a year ago, and I feel like they've done a great job of really introducing him to the uninitiated as well, so. Host: What's been one of the greatest sort of fan experiences? 'Cause I think there's a very rabid Oh, C

Who's excited. Comic-Con, man. Ryan Reynolds: Comic-Con? I mean, Comic-Con was crazy. I was 'cause the last time I was at Comic-Con was I was there for Green Lantern.

And that was tough. Like, you know, you're. So, you know, you sort of feel like, you know, I'm so close to Deadpool and I'm so, intimate with it that, like, I have zero objectivity.

I mean, absolutely zero. So walking into Comic-Con everybody's laughing and smiling, and Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and Tim Miller, the director, and everybody, they're all just laughing and back slapping. And I just am sheet white and terrified, 'cause I have no idea how this.

I'm too close to it. So, then when the, when the, our presentation played, we showed them about three or four minutes of the movie, and it finished, and they were all on their feet, and then they were, they started chanting, "One more time, one more time." So they played it one more time, our presentation, and that to me was, like, I've, I.

Was so surreal. It was such a magical moment. Host: I think a lot of people on the internet were curious, were there any on-set shenanigans? And if so, can you tell us about any Ryan Reynolds: of them?

Wow. Not a like, surprisingly for a movie like this, there weren't a ton of on-set shenanigans. A lot of it was just alternate jokes. I mean, we just had so much fun with messing around.

I mean, it was, just a matter of time that sort of pulled us away from each scene. But I we would do 15 alt jokes for every one you see in the movie. So the home entertainment package or whatever the hell they I'm, like, so old, I'm like, "The laserdisc package for this film is gonna be exceptional."

No, the, but the digital package that comes after, they're gonna have everything. I mean, all the gag reel is just stupid funny. Like, a a nine-hour cut.

Yeah, you could do, like, a nine-hour. I mean, there's so many little extras that that stuff's gonna be fun, I think. Host: All right. Well, where do you think the character Deadpool could do the most good in the world we currently live in?

Ryan Reynolds: Oh, where he could do the. Oh, my God. Well, certainly the presidential election would be some place that I would implement his Host: his He's Canadian, though.

I don't Ryan Reynolds: know if he can, unique skill set. Yeah, no, he can't. We did run a a brief, a Deadpool for El Presidente, campaign in the middle of our, last week, I think.

But we polled it the same day, because he's just too immature for that. So I think he could do some, do some good there. I'd love to see him as a pundit, because he can't really focus.

So it would be fun to just see the tangents, you know. I would love to see Bill O'Reilly handle him. Yeah. Yeah. The pundit with a mouth.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. He's got a good ring to it. Yeah. Deadpool, two, the pundit with a mouth. Yeah, exactly. All right.

Host: Exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much. Ryan Reynolds: Thank you for you guys for having me.

Thank you guys. This was really fun. I really appreciate it. Thank you.