Ryan Reynolds “Let Go Of Getting Paid” On ‘Deadpool’ To Get His Writers On Set

Deadpool (2016)

Deadpool & Wolverine has almost arrived in theaters, and while the rest of the world wonders who is playing Lady Deadpool — let’s be real, it’s probably Blake Lively — Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are on a whirlwind press tour. And that also means a lot of looking back, which led to the surprising revelation from Reynolds that for the first Deadpool movie, he “let go of getting paid.”

That bit comes from the duo’s New York Times interview, which mostly rehashes stories they’ve told elsewhere. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good stories, and if you haven’t heard them, they’re new to you. But the most intriguing bit is Reynolds reflecting on the tight budget of 2016’s Deadpool

“When I finally got to make [Deadpool], it had been almost 10 years at that point,” Reynolds recalled. “No part of me was thinking when Deadpool was finally greenlit that this would be a success. I even let go of getting paid to do the movie just to put it back on the screen: They wouldn’t allow my co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on set, so I took the little salary I had left and paid them to be on set with me so we could form a de facto writers room.”

Rather than any knock on Fox and penny-pinching, writers can be on set for big-budget movies, but as Reynolds intimates that’s usually the last concern of the studio. Conversely, Reynolds putting priority on the writing is a large part of what made the first Deadpool a success. Yes, he has a fast wit and is easygoing in public. But well-crafted jokes, scenes, and emotional beats take time and effort on the part of writers… There’s only so much improv you can do once the cameras start rolling before you’re just creating extra work for the editors.

hugh jackman as wolverine and ryan reynolds as deadpool in deadpool 3

By the way, don’t worry about Reynolds and his paycheck. After Deadpool made $780 million on a $58 million budget, he was able to pivot that into getting a much higher salary going forward. And not only that, his elevated star presence after that movie is a non-substantial part of how he was able to co-own multiple companies and turn them into earnings powerhouses as well. Reportedly, he — or the companies he has investments in — are worth billions.

“It was a lesson in a couple of senses,” Reynolds continued. “I think one of the great enemies of creativity is too much time and money, and that movie had neither time nor money. It really fostered focusing on character over spectacle, which is a little harder to execute in a comic-book movie. I was just so invested in every micro-detail of it and I hadn’t felt like that in a long, long time.”

That’s clearly a strong lesson Reynolds has taken forward to every project he’s worked on, up to and including Deadpool & Wolverine. Here’s hoping the other lesson — let your writers on set — stuck, too.

Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on July 26, 2024.

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