The role that almost broke Ryan Reynolds: “It was actually really awful”
These days, it’s almost impossible to imagine Ryan Reynolds extricating himself from his smug, flippant comfort zone to play a character that actually demands more from him.
But it wasn’t always like that. Sure, Reynolds has been firmly planted in the action-comedy blockbuster world ever since Deadpool unexpectedly raked in $782million at the global box office back in 2016. In the nine years since, he’s more or less stuck to that same cheeky, self-aware, ultra-violent persona – popping up in films like Free Guy, Hobbs & Shaw, The Hitman’s Bodyguard and Red Notice, not to mention a couple of maddening Deadpool sequels.
In essence, he found a formula that finally made him a true A-list star in Hollywood after 15 years of trying, and he’s clung to it for dear life ever since.
Before Deadpool, though, it’s easy to forget that Reynolds was far from one of the industry’s most bankable stars. Instead, he had a bit of a reputation as a nearly man – the bloke who’d often end up being the best thing in a big-budget flop. And while Reynolds might’ve cursed his luck back then, there was a silver lining. For viewers who reckoned he had more to give than just one-liners and washboard abs, the lack of mainstream success kept things interesting.
Back then, Reynolds hadn’t settled into a formula yet, so he had to take a few chances with his roles. That paid off with a string of solid performances across all sorts of genres – from romcoms like The Proposal, to indie thrillers like The Captive, mind-bending sci-fi in The Nines, and full-throttle action in Smokin’ Aces. But his standout from that era has to be Buried, the nerve-shredding thriller where he plays a man desperately trying to save his own life after waking up buried alive.
Directed by Rodrigo Cortés (Red Lights), the film proved that when Reynolds is properly dialled in, he’s more than capable of carrying a film solo for a full 95 minutes. The entire thing was shot from inside the coffin his character’s stuck in, so quite literally, there was nowhere for him to hide. He couldn’t rely on his usual quippy bag of tricks, either, because nobody is going to be telling jokes when they’re running out of breathable air. In the end, he equipped himself perfectly and truly sold the panic, fear, and desperation of a man staring death in the face.
While Reynolds’ fans may point to Buried as the kind of movie he should be making more often, he mightn’t be so keen to go down that path again. You see, making that movie was such a gruelling experience for the star that he admitted it nearly broke him, with the only saving grace being that the shoot, which took place in sunny Barcelona, was a scant 17 days long. “I was having a tough time, I think, out there,” Reynolds admitted to The AV Club. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but at the end of the day, I would take it all home with me.”
Even though the film was shot in one of the most stunning cities in the world, Reynolds admitted he hardly saw any of it. Playing a character trapped in one spot ended up spilling over into real life – he spent most of his time holed up in his hotel room, struggling to sleep and missing his family something awful. “I would just kind of wait for the sun to come up again so we could go back into the coffin and shoot some more, and just get this thing over with,” Reynolds confessed. “I had a real issue with insomnia out there, probably for the first time in my life.”
For weeks on end, Reynolds lay awake at night, simultaneously dreading the next day’s shoot but also feeling a nervous anticipation to get it out of the way. Eventually, he became so withdrawn that he didn’t even call home to talk to his family, because he knew he was in too strange a headspace to interact with them.
“I just kind of tried to get through it,” he noted with disarming honesty. “I treated it like a mini tour of duty.” Then, with a nod of acceptance, he concluded, “It was actually really awful.”
