Ryan Reynolds Shared His Biggest Fear About Playing Deadpool

Ryan Reynolds loves to make jokes, which makes it easy to see why he was cast as Wade Wilson/Deadpool and why he’s so good at it. But one of the things about Ryan Reynolds that I also really enjoy is that he’s willing to share his honesty and worry about things. One of those worries when it comes to Deadpool was that he wasn’t sure how people would respond to his portrayal of the character.

To set the scene, at the time of Deadpool‘s release, Reynolds had been in two different comic book movies, and neither was particularly well-loved. I am not speaking for myself, because I come from a household where my brother’s favorite hero is the Green Lantern, so we watched Reynolds as Hal Jordan numerous times despite the overall reception of the film. (Also, my father died still claiming he enjoyed that movie, so there’s that.)

But he had also played Wade Wilson before in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film that no one asked for. So, while the general consensus was “No, we loved Reynolds as Wade,” despite the weird choices made for the character in that movie, I still get why the star would be a little hesitant to show the world his full-on Deadpool film. And in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Reynolds opened up a bit about that worry.

“I’d been in the comic book arena before, to no real success,” Ryan Reynolds said. “And I thought, ‘Wow, if this doesn’t work, I’m gonna let people down.’ And that was my biggest fear, was just letting folks down who loved this character.”

Why Reynolds is a perfect Deadpool

This answer, frankly, embodies why Reynolds is a perfect Wade Wilson—not because he’s snarky (which he is) or because he’s first to make some quippy response instead of being honest (which I feel as if Reynolds also relates to), but because he has moments of vulnerability amidst the jokes and the jabs, and it makes you care for him. And yes, that sentence applies to both Reynolds and Wilson.

The thing is: Reynolds is a Scorpio (probably why I, a fellow Scorpio, like him so much)—just kidding, this has nothing to do with what I’m saying I just wanted to point out that we have a great Scorpio in our ranks. But anyway, the actual thing is: Reynolds has built a persona of being a jokester. We see it in his birthday posts for his wife, Blake Lively, where she’s not even in the picture. We see it in his “feud” with Hugh Jackman.

So when he has these more vulnerable moments, it feels like he’s letting us in, and that happens with Wade Wilson as a character, too. He’s so aggressively snarky that when he is honest about his feelings or his fear, we see it and recognize that he is trusting us, as the audience, to go on this journey with him.

And that’s what makes Reynolds such a good choice for Deadpool, and I’m glad we got to see him shine. I can’t wait for Deadpool 3, and until then, I’ll just keep rewatching the first two over and over again.

(featured image: Hector Retamala/AFP Getty)