Blake Lively: How ‘Deadpool’ Star Ryan Reynolds Inspired His Wife To Star In ‘The Shallows’


Actress Blake Lively claims that her husband Ryan Reynolds inspired her to take the leading role in the suspenseful thriller The Shallows.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the former Gossip Girl star admitted that her husband (and Deadpool star) was more of an indirect source of inspiration for Blake when it came to this particular film.

How so? Was it something that he said? Did Reynolds use his witty punchlines and impeccable comic timing to persuade his wife to star in The Shallows merely with fancy wordplay? Apparently not!

Blake Lively told Entertainment Weekly that the inspiration actually came from one of Ryan Reynold’s lesser known performances.

“My husband did a movie called Buried and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to take on this movie so much, because I know how tough that was for him and how rewarding it was. It was terrifying and one of the most vulnerable things you can do but you gotta do it, right?”

Blake was referring to the 2010 Rodrigo Cortes-directed thriller Buried – a film that mostly featured Ryan Reynolds trapped inside of a box – buried alive.

In the film, Ryan Reynolds played Paul Conroy – a civilian truck driver working in Iraq. Paul’s truck was one of several that were apparently ambushed and attacked by terrorists. Conroy wakes up inside of a wooden coffin gagged and bound with nothing more than his Blackberry phone and a Zippo lighter.

Filming that particular movie definitely took a toll on Ryan Reynolds in many different ways, according to the Los Angeles Times. In a September 2010 interview, he openly expressed and explained the emotionally and physically challenging role that he had to endure with Buried.

“I spent the days in such a heightened state of anxiety and panic that I don’t remember a lot of it, and it’s hard to watch it now. I’ve seen it twice, and it’s hard to see. It feels a lot like a fever dream. There was points where I’m in there screaming that I’m running out of air, that I’m running out of time, and the crew kept ripping the lid off the coffin. They thought I was really in distress. It happened like three different times. It reached such a fever pitch of panic, they thought it was real. I told them, ‘If I need help, I’ll yell, ‘Cut!’ It was harrowing for everyone. I didn’t sleep well, and it really stuck with me. You’ll never complain on any movie set ever again after something like that.”

Apparently, Blake Lively wanted a taste of that same type of challenge as well – which explains why she took on the lead role of the suspenseful thriller The Shallows.

The Shallows allowed Blake Lively to take a break from romantic comedies and love stories to focus on a suspenseful thriller that is bound to keep moviegoers on the edge of their seats. In the film, Lively plays a surfer who becomes a shark attack victim. Moments after the initial attack, as seen in the full-length trailer, she is left trapped on a rock in the ocean – left alone to fight for her life and defend herself against the shark that wants to finish her off.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Blake Lively was essentially the only actress in the entire film. Even the main “villain” of the film – the shark – wasn’t added until post-production.

[Photo by Getty Images Pool]

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