Ryan Reynolds Admits Deadpool Almost Caused A Nervous Breakdown

Deep, insightful exposes with engaging stars don't come around as often as we would like, but fortunately GQ sat down with Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds. All to delve into his experience with the project and get an idea of what will come next. Covering a multitude of topics that spanned his casting, a major conflict of interest, reshooting and taking a major gamble on a project that was never guaranteed to be a hit.

Ryan Reynolds Superhero Spread

But when the topic of Tim Miller's departure came though, he remained guarded.

“All I can really add is that I'm sad to see him off the film," said the actor bluntly. "Tim's brilliant and nobody worked harder on Deadpool than he did.”

False Start Pained Reynolds in 2007

Deadpool 2 Casting

"It was during a writers’ strike," began Reynolds as he recounted his introduction to Marvel. "So all my dialogue in X-Men Origins: Wolverine I wrote. I mean, in the stage directions it just said, “Deadpool shows up, talks really fast, and makes a lot of jokes.” At the beginning of that movie, that’s pretty close to Deadpool’s Wade Wilson—we’re in the ballpark with that guy."

That's when some serious red flags were raised for the performer who felt let down by the studio.

"But it completely departed all canon and reason and he wound up being this abomination of Deadpool that was like Barakapool, with his mouth sewn shut and weird blades that came out of his hands and these strange tattoos and stuff like that. If you watch the movie, I’m actually playing only a small section, and another actor, this gifted stunt performer, is doing the lion’s share of that work. The conversation at the time was “If you want to play Deadpool, this is your chance to introduce him. And if you don’t want to introduce him in this fashion, we’ll have someone else play him.”

Creative Process A Case Of Give And Take As Control Battle Loomed

Tim Miller Directing Deadpool

Admitting that he faced “a little bit of a nervous breakdown” while this was all taking place, Reynolds understood that each party had their limits when he finally struck up the courage to embark on the movie.

"Making the movie was very, very difficult," he said. "It was the most passionate group of individuals I’ve ever worked with in my life. And for whatever reason, that mercurial crazy burgoo of people is what made this thing work so well, not just because I had this vision and I saw it this way and it had to be this way. It worked because we all had that feeling. But there were vaguely scary fights in the post-production process that escalated quickly. Luckily, everybody’s grown up and at the end of the day enjoys and loves each other."

But it was handing over parts of the film to Miller and pushing it in his image that was the delicate balancing act he managed to strike perfectly.

"I know when I need to exert control, and I know when I need to let go of it," argued Reynolds. "I’m not gonna go and sit with Tim Miller and say, “The visual effects of Deadpool need to be done this way.” The man is a visual-effects wizard. But there are character and tone things that I know really well. And I’ve also been with this thing the longest out of anybody, aside from the guys that wrote the comics. Eleven years I’ve been trying to get this Sisyphus rock up the hill, and it kept rolling back on top of me. So I’m gonna be all the fuck over it from the moment it starts to the moment it finishes."

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