The only two actors who left Ryan Reynolds starstruck: “I had trouble forming a sentence”
Regardless of what you think of his eternal presence in our lives or his one-note performance style, Ryan Reynolds is undeniably a star.
Whether he’s slicing up baddies with his katanas or buying a Welsh football club, Reynolds is box office. In an era where it feels like genuine headliners are at an all low-time low, he cuts a very impressive figure.
Given how prominent he is in the current pop culture landscape, you’d think that there was nobody left that Reynolds felt starstruck around. How wrong you are. In an interview with Gentleman’s Journal – which isn’t a porn mag, despite its name – the Canadian heartthrob revealed that he still got sheepish around Dwayne Johnson. The pair worked together on Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw and Netflix’s instantly forgettable Red Notice. He described the former wrestler as “a movie star machine”.
Reynolds made these comments in 2019, when Johnson was in the middle of an insane career peak. This year was the first of three in a row that he was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, an accolade he also claimed in 2016. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before the bloom fell off the muscular rose. Johnson now finds himself at something of a career crossroads. He isn’t the surefire draw he once used to be, with many of his recent films making huge losses at the box office. The world is still waiting to see if he bags an Oscar nomination for The Smashing Machine, but the fact that he was honoured by the Golden Globes is a good sign.
In that same interview, Reynolds got thinking about other big names that left him lost for words. “It was the same with Brad [Pitt],” he said. “I had trouble forming a sentence around that guy. And I met Jay-Z once, and all I did was stutter.”
Movie buffs might be scrambling to think of when Pitt and Reynolds shared the bill. While the two megastars haven’t properly collaborated, there are two movies in which they both appear. The first is Deadpool 2. Pitt appears for about seven frames of the superhero sequel, playing a character who is invisible. His face only appears as he is being electrocuted to death.
Four years later, Reynolds returned the favour in the movie Bullet Train. He appears very briefly in a flashback scene, playing an assassin that Pitt’s character is mistaken for.
As for Jay-Z, as far as I’m aware, he hasn’t been in any of Reynolds’ movies. Conversely, Reynolds hasn’t featured on any of his tracks. The closest connection I could find was a rumour that Jay-Z was in the running to buy Everton Football Club, which might have made him and his admirer rivals one day.
Does Reynolds feel silly getting awestruck around these stars when he is such a big one himself? Not at all. In fact, he wished it happened more often. “I’d be sad if I ever got jaded about that feeling, if I saw someone I adored and just shrugged it off,” he revealed. “That’s when I’d want to hang it up.”
