Ryan Reynolds on 'Deadpool', Comics, and Playing the Hero

Wednesday, 08 June 2011 16:39 Written by Jordan DeSaulnier

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Ryan Reynolds on 'Deadpool', Comics, and Playing the Hero

With a dry cool wit, charisma to spare, and an appearance that is straight from the idealized pages of a comic book, it's no wonder that Ryan Reynolds is so associated with superheroic films. In the upcoming Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds will play the lead in a full-on superhero adventure for the first time, but he previously played supporting roles in Blade Trinity and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In that X-Men prequel, he appeared as the irreverent mercenary Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, and a feature for the character has long been a passion project for Reynolds. At a press conference for Green Lantern, the actor provided an update on Deadpool's development and talked about his history with comic books.

Asked about the comics that he enjoyed in his formative years, and Reynolds was quick to answer, "Growing up, I read a bit of X-Men stuff and I loved Deadpool. You know, my brother introduced me to Deadpool and that was a character I loved, but beyond that I didn't know that much about comics. Those are the ones I kind of stuck to."

Back in April, 20th Century Fox chose visual effects veteran Tim Miller to make his feature directorial debut on Deadpool, which has a screenplay by Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Reynolds's busy schedule, which includes a potential Green Lantern sequel and the supernatural action-comedy R.I.P.D. with Jeff Bridges, has caused consistent concerns that Deadpool will never come to fruition.

Elaborating on his connection to Wade Wilson, Reynolds confirmed not only his love of the character, but that the film is still very much in development, saying, "Deadpool is a character that I love and I got a great opportunity to play him in more of ancillary sense in a film, which was great because it allowed me to jump in and play him, but then not be committed to too much beyond that. But I do have that film that's in development still, so we'll see what happens with that."

He went on to clarify that, though playing Deadpool was a privilege, Green Lantern is the biggest role of his career. "For the most part, Green Lantern's the first kind of iconic superhero role that I've ever had the great opportunity to play," he said, adding, "I'm pretty damn grateful for that."

Commenting on the number of superhero parts he's played or been associated with, Reynolds shared his ambitious plans for the future, joking, "By 2014 I'm gonna do Wonder Woman, but after that I think I'm going to hang it up. I'm going to hang up the lasso and the short, short shorts."

Ryan Reynolds will probably never sport star-spangled hot pants in a Wonder Woman film, but he does rock a CGI supersuit and power ring in Green Lantern, which also stars Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Angela Bassett, Mark Strong, Tim Robbins, and the voices of Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clarke Duncan. The film hits theaters in 3D on June 17th.

As for Deadpool, we can only wait and hope.