Ryan Reynolds Explains Why He Poked Fun at His Green Lantern Stint in Deadpool
Ryan Reynolds has no compunction making light of his role in Green Lantern, which many agree was cheap and disappointing, especially for its visual effects.
There are fans with a soft spot for the film – that a lot of people worked on – but Reynolds’ jokes still persist in two Deadpool movies. He, for his part, assures everyone he is only laughing at himself, no one else.
“I think it’s more about just laughing at myself, not laughing at other people, necessarily, that are involved in a project,” Reynolds said during an online press event for his new movie Free Guy (via ComicBook.com).
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“But laughing at myself and my own contribution to that failure or however you want to characterize it,” Reynolds emphasized. “It was just something that I thought was worth examining, you know?”
He continued, “And in examining it, you take that energy that is – typically, maybe it’s hurtful or maybe it’s something that’s dragging you down – and you end up creating a sort of mental Judo with it.”
And he added, “You’re using its energy against it and creating something positive out of it.”
The most noteworthy joke in the first Deadpool, the actor reveals, not to make his suit “green or animated,” he wrote himself.
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“I wrote it into the Deadpool script, I think where my character says something like, ‘Please don’t make this suit green or animated,’ when he’s being shoved into the superhero factory or whatever,” Reynolds recollected.
He would further recall, “And I noticed that it felt good to shine a light on that for a second.”
He added, “it’s just something I’ve always done, but the most significant thing that’s ever happened in my career is laughing at myself always.”
“Like, since the start of the work,” Reynolds continued. “And there’s plenty there to laugh at.”
In Deadpool 2, he turned up the gag to 11 when Wade Wilson went back to 2011 and shot Reynolds playing himself holding the script for GL.
Most people won’t go that far to lampoon themselves, but Reynolds shrugs it off as a manifestation of regrets everyone bears and wishes they could either take back or laugh at.
“Everybody has their own…you lay in bed at night and you think, ‘Oh God, this thing I did was so awful or silly or ridiculous’,” he said. “I think that’s got this fuel for lots of stuff.”
Reynolds may yet have enough “fuel” for that type of “stuff” whenever Deadpool makes it into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Until then, his new action-comedy Free Guy – which he refers to as the best movie he’s ever done – hits theaters (if they’re open) on December 11th.
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