Interview: Ryan Reynolds
Canadian-American Relations
Vancouver’s Ryan Reynolds finally makes a movie about being Canadian. Strangely, he’s not the one playing the Canuck
By Kevin Williamson
Talk about a role reversal, eh?
In the romantic-comedy The Proposal, Sandra Bullock is a transplanted Canadian who, when faced with the possibility of being deported from her adopted American home, arm-twists her bullied assistant, Ryan Reynolds, into marrying her.
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Off-screen, of course, Reynolds is the Canuck who last September wed a
famous American: actor Scarlett Johansson, although we presume that
union was entirely voluntary and Reynolds was never in danger of being
booted back across the border.
After all, even in Hollywood, a town teeming with Canadians, he
remains one of the Great White North’s most sought-after exports.
Having repeatedly shown his versatility — his varied résumé runs the
gamut from action to comedy to drama — he has thus far avoided being
typecast. Or underworked. In addition to The Proposal, Reynolds has had two other films released since April: Adventureland (he plays an amusement park mechanic) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (as mercenary Deadpool). And next month should see the release of Fireflies in the Garden,
a dysfunctional-family drama that stars Reynolds as Julia Roberts’ son
Michael, or at least the adult version of Roberts’ son — the film jumps
back and forth in time while trying to unravel the family’s troubles.
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“It’s not work. It’s just what I do, I love it,” Reynolds says
during a recent interview at a Beverly Hills hotel. “[But] I was
working 15 months straight, so I’m happy not to be shooting a movie
right now.”
It turns out the pairing of Reynolds and Bullock, if not inevitable,
was at least probable. The two stars, whose greatest successes have
come with lighter romantic fare, have known each other for the better
part of a decade.
“Sandra, I’ve been friends with for almost eight years. Her best friend runs my company and before he ran my company, he and I were very good friends. So we met that way and have been friends ever since,” he says. “It was amazing to work with her and bring eight years of chemistry to the table and have this unbelievable, unspoken bond that works so well for our movie. It’s this real kind of love-hate relationship between the two of them that is so fluid. We had times where it was just one or two takes and we’re moving on, which is unheard of in a romantic-comedy because there’s so much over-tweaking with everything.”
Elaborating on the similarities between rom-com queens Bullock and Roberts, he adds, “I don’t think you can reach the level of success they’ve reached without having an enormous amount of class and integrity. Because even Hollywood will weed out the a--holes and bastards eventually…. They’re both incomparable talents.”
Reynolds, who was born and raised in Vancouver, first came to Hollywood’s attention in the early 1990s when the Canadian drama in which he starred, Hillside, was picked up by Nickelodeon in the U.S.
A few years later, he landed a starring role on the sitcom Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, followed by the big-screen’s National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. In the decade since, his credits have included Just Friends with Anna Faris and Amy Smart; Definitely, Maybe with Isla Fisher and Elizabeth Banks; the vampire sequel Blade: Trinity, the rehash of The Amityville Horror and the testosterone-fuelled action-thriller Smokin’ Aces.
But it is his marriage to Johansson that has made Reynolds the tabloid target he is today.
The 32-year-old, who guards his privacy and declines to discuss his personal life, says he hopes he can continue to maintain a low profile. “To a certain degree, that kind of exposure is something that you court and I’ve never been one to court it. You probably don’t see a lot of photos of me running around between different clubs. If you don’t want to be photographed, you know the places where it’s more likely you won’t be.”
Besides, if need be, he can always head home to Canada for a breather from prying eyes. “I retreat. I have a place up in Vancouver that I’ve always had. My family’s up there, and life is a little more subdued up there so I like that.”
Maybe so, but he also acknowledges he sometimes wishes we Canadians were just a little less subdued.
“In America, there’s a huge sense of entitlement, which for a Canadian can be refreshing because you know the culture in Canada is that of reservation…. I almost wish you could fuse the two countries — the mentalities — together.”
Kevin Williamson is a Calgary-based movie columnist for Sun Media.
Into the Wild
Much of The Proposal’s rom-com action is set in Alaska, where Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) takes his boss/fake fiancée (Sandra Bullock) to meet his family. Perhaps it was the thought of the Alaskan wilderness — and we do mean thought since The Proposal wasn’t filmed in the northern state but rather in Massachusetts and Rhode Island — that spurred Reynolds to plan a summer road trip to Alaska.
An avid motorcyclist, Reynolds told Men’s Health magazine that he, his brother and a friend will ride their bikes along the Top of the World Highway, the 105-kilometre stretch of pavement that runs from Dawson City in the Yukon to Alaska, where it joins with Taylor Highway (Alaska Route 5). Reynolds will make the journey on his spiffy Paul Smart Ducati.
—Ingrid Randoja