Ryan Reynolds Might Be Ready To Retire From Doing His Own Stunts
There's nothing cooler than a veteran actor who still does their own stunts. It's the reason we all still kind of like Tom Cruise despite his (to put it as gently as possible) disconcerting ties to Scientology. Big, established movie stars rarely feel the pressure to do their own stunts. They're really valuable to studios, and they know it, and there are plenty of perfectly good stunt people waiting in the wings. Nobody's going to get genuinely upset if Robert De Niro doesn't actually jump out of a moving car for a movie ... but it would be slightly cooler if he did.
Ryan Reynolds, until recently, was among the group of A-list actors who would still dabble in stunt work from time to time. As recently as in 2022's "The Adam Project," Reynolds was doing most of his character's close-up fight scenes. You would figure a guy as handsome as Reynolds wouldn't need to do stunts too, but then again, you would also probably assume he wouldn't have to be funny. Reynolds has gotten injured doing stunts before, and even accidentally hurt Denzel Washington performing a stunt on the set of "Safe House." Despite all these setbacks, Reynolds kept going back for more.
However, it seems the "Deadpool" star may be ready to hang up his, uh, stunt shoes. In an interview to promote the film "Spirited" on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," Reynolds admitted that he's "rethinking" the idea of continuing to perform his own stunts in the future.
'I just had a seventh surgery'
As Ryan Reynolds told Jimmy Fallon, a combination of his fourth child being on the way and the injuries he's already accumulated over the years have made him reconsider whether he wants to join the Tom Cruise "Will Happily Die on the Set of a Movie" Club:
"I mean, we have three beautiful girls right now and a fourth one on the way. It's really making me rethink stunts. You know, I've been doing action movies for 25 years. I've broken 12 bones. I just had a seventh surgery. And, you know, kids, though, they beat you up. I oftentimes – like, it's not an alarm clock that wakes me up. It's, like, a knee to the jugular. And I just want to keep – I'm rethinking doing stunts now because I'm starting to realize I want to be able to still kind of be active with my kids and stuff. Like, I love throwing them up in the air. Like, I can throw my daughter Betty, especially – I can throw her – she's so little, I can throw her high in the air. And she loves it. The problem is, I can't catch her anymore, so that's the biggest issue I'm facing."
It's pretty heartbreaking to read that Reynolds can no longer catch his daughter when he throws her in the air. Like so many professional athletes before him, it appears he's found himself paying the price for what he did to his body earlier on in his career. I think we can all agree that Reynolds has done enough stunts for one lifetime. Nobody will think less of him if he doesn't, say, jump out of a helicopter for real in "Deadpool 3," or whatever that Wade Wilson guy's getting up to these days.