Want to push Ryan Reynolds’ buttons? Talk smack about John Candy and see how you fare. While cruising into the Toronto International Film Festival, Entertainment Weekly caught up with Reynolds, a producer of the new documentary John Candy: I Like Me (read our review HERE). According to EW, Reynolds discovered footage from the doc of a journalist shaming Candy for his weight. The incident did not sit well with Reynolds, and he wanted to give the offending party a chance to discuss the exchange.
“There was a lot of things we left out of the documentary, journalists just saying stuff. One of them I called,” Reynolds said about the journalist who was on camera making derogatory comments about Candy’s weight. “I didn’t put it in the movie, but I called this journalist just to see.”
“I wasn’t trying to shame him or teach him a lesson,” Reynolds explained. “[I told him] I took it out of the movie, but I’d put it in the movie if you wanted to talk about it, because maybe you have something to say about it, about your journey whenever it comes to something like that. We had such a thoughtful conversation about it.”
Sadly, it’s a fact that some journalists could not help themselves regarding the act of “fat shaming” Candy for his fluctuating weight.
“You look at interview after interview and horrible things are being said and questions are being asked in incredibly insensitive ways,” Hanks told Variety before the film’s TIFF premiere. “It’s tough to see how uncomfortable John was in almost every clip. And he had good reason, because some of the things that people said were disgusting and would not be tolerated today.”
Colin Hanks, whose father, Tom Hanks, famously starred alongside John Candy in Splash, directs the upcoming documentary with Ryan Reynolds as a producer. The doc includes a deep dive into home videos, hoping to tell the story behind the lovable comedian.
It pains me to think of Candy suffering mental distress at the insensitivity of journalists with poor manners and no filter. While I’m positive Reynolds acted professionally, a part of me hopes he also read them the riot act in the process. Either way, he handled it better than I would have. Candy is one of my favorite actors ever, and I will protect his legacy at all costs. Try me.
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