Ryan Reynolds: ‘I Like To See The Veins In People’s Necks Popping Out’
Ryan Reynolds is a man who usually likes to do his own stunts.
The Canadian actor, whose latest film, Self/less, opened in theaters this past week, recently spoke to People about the thrill he experiences while filming action sequences.
“I remember 10 years ago when falling on cement was hilarious. It doesn’t feel like that anymore. I’m right at that age where I’ll do as many takes as they want, but I’m lying on the ground after each one thinking, ‘Oh, God. Just get up and get up fast. Don’t let them see you [in pain].’ “
Self/less, directed by Tarsem Singh, is a story about dying industrialist Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley), who “sheds” his consciousness into the body of a young man, Edward, played by Ryan Reynolds. The film is a psychological sci-fi thriller that involved quite a few stunts, most of which were performed by Reynolds himself, barring the major ones. He conceded that it is the character-based stunts that he likes to do most.
“I love doing the fight stuff. So much of it is character-based, so you want to be a part of that and put your fingerprints on that and do it as much as possible. We keep it as real and visceral as possible, which I love. I don’t like [fight scenes] to feel like a bad kung fu movie. I like it to feel like there are real stakes. I like to see the veins in people’s necks popping out.”
What a nice little thing to say, Ryan! But now with the shooting of his next release, Deadpool, wrapped up, one wonders how much of the serious stuff did Ryan Reynolds do himself in the superhero film. He spoke to Parade about the moment in his career which made him rethink the consequences of doing stunts that bordered on dangerous.
“I spent a lot of years taking pride in performing my own stunts. A couple of years back, I broke two vertebrae in my neck in a stunt gone wrong. Since then, I’ve been happy to hand over the big stuff to the professionals.”
The film Ryan Reynolds is referring to is the 2012 action thriller movie Safe House, in which he starred alongside Denzel Washington. The movie required the two actors to indulge in a flurry of punches and dropkicks, which resulted in a broken neck for Ryan Reynolds. In an interview with Yahoo!, Ryan Reynolds confessed to not realizing the extent of the injury months after the film ended.
“My neck was killing me after the movie for… six or seven months. I finally got an X-ray and the doctor laughed and said, ‘You broke your neck!’. My C5 and C6 were broken from this stunt.”
With Deadpool slated for a release in a few months’ time, fans cannot wait to see how Ryan Reynolds fares in his next movie. We hope Ryan did not break any body parts this time around.
This is definitely a photo of Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool, not a stunt double paid $100 to pose in a onesie pic.twitter.com/DKuwMe5tWs
— constance jiang (@conzconzbobonz) March 27, 2015
[Photo: Kevin Winter / Getty Images]
