“That’ll be the death of me”: the audition so bad Ryan Reynolds never wants anyone to see the tape
Ryan Reynolds earned his greatest career opportunity when the Deadpool test footage leaked, but that doesn’t mean he wants all of his old videos to go viral.
His snarky sense of humour may have rubbed some people the wrong way in recent years, but it’s hard not to be sympathetic to him, based on how many years he spent grinding in the industry. Reynolds was always an actor with a sharp sense of charisma, but he had an unfortunate track record of always being the best part of a terrible movie.
National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Green Lantern, Self/less, Criminal, and Blade: Trinity are just a few of the disasters that he was associated with. He’s honestly fairly compelling in all of them, but would never get any credit for it because of how terrible the films are. Unsurprisingly, Reynolds’ greatest success came when he took his career into his own hands.
His debut as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine was famously botched, even though he was a massive fan of the character. While he had pitched a solo, R-rated Deadpool film to 20th Century Fox, the studio was hesitant to give it a greenlight based on the concerns surrounding a more mature superhero film. It was after a test footage reel Reynolds had made mysteriously leaked, earning widespread acclaim, that Deadpool was officially put into production.
The film was a massive success that turned Reynolds into a globally viable star, meaning that he had more control over the projects that he could appear in. However, the actor admitted to “hating” the auditioning process, and alluded to having bombed his audition to work with Joel and Ethan Coen when he sang in a test for Inside Llewyn Davis, but he admitted that one memory sticks out as being the most painful.
“I was never a great auditioner, but I had one where I had to sing, and I’m a nervous singer,” Reynolds opened up to Variety, “I’m one of those people that, you know, when you’re in the shower, and you’re like, ‘This is pretty good’. But once I get out into the real world, it’s just like my voice turns into a hammer that hits everybody in the face. So I did an audition where I had to sing, and it was pretty bad. It’s one of those auditions that was so bad that I look back and I think, ‘What if that tape surfaces at some point? That’ll be the death of me’.”
He didn’t disclose what film he had auditioned for, but he implied that he didn’t get far along in the callback process. He may have lampooned his own abilities to sing, but his musical skills aren’t necessarily as bad as he’s made them out to be, as he and Will Ferrell co-starred in the holiday musical Spirited, which was a lot better than it had any right to be.
Reynolds has certainly earned the right to detest the auditioning process, given that much of his most successful work has come from projects that he was creatively involved in; however, there is a danger that no longer attending auditions means that his characters are all sort of blending together.
Even if Reynolds doesn’t attend another audition for the rest of his career, he would do himself a favour if he decided to step outside of his comfort zone.
