Ryan Reynolds on how Green Lantern led him to Deadpool

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Lest you thought all of the DEADPOOL news today would be about Colossus' massive role in the film (more on that here), Ryan Reynolds recently spoke to GQ magazine regarding his starring role as the Merc with the Mouth. Of course, those who have seen the trailer knows that he pokes fun at his previous GREEN LANTERN character and costume, but the man is actually a little more grateful than you may realize. You can check out the full interview here, but I've placed the pertinent information for you below.

Whether or not Ryan Reynolds enjoys headlining a movie:

Yeah. Deadpool, I loved doing that. That’s sort of a dream come true for me. But again, he’s funny and acerbic and a little bit of a head case. But he’s also not trying to be liked. He’s intentionally trying to annoy everyone.

If he was reluctant to return to the superhero genre:

A little bit. But Deadpool was different because there wasn’t a big budget attached to it. There was not a tremendous responsibility to meet some kind of bottom line. Those kinds of superhero movies when you’re out front, there’s a vast and quite frightening budget attached to them. This one had a super-reasonable budget, and it was subversive and a little bit different, and to me a little refreshing in the comic-book world. But you always have trepidation. When you’re out front, you have trepidation.

If a successful GREEN LANTERN would have been a good or bad thing:

I mean, I don’t give a rusty f*ck, because — I know that this is gonna sound like some sort of guy who’s spent a little bit of time in a monastery or something, but it all led to here. If I had to do it all again, I’d do the exact same thing. You know, also, Green Lantern — you gotta remember, at the time, everyone was gunning for that role. The guys I was screen-testing against are amazing talents. But would I change it? No! And if it was as big a success, then it might have offered a whole different avenue of opportunities, or maybe I would just be kind of always that guy. I really don’t know. I think I would be probably in prep for Green Lantern 3 right now. That sounds about right.

I was pretty excited to see a Martin Campbell-directed GREEN LANTERN, given his work on GOLDENEYE and CASINO ROYALE, but I suppose his talents are better utilized on Bond films. LANTERN was a forgettable affair (to say the least) but Reynolds gave it his all, and it's cool to see that even he's kinda over bashing the flick at this point. No one sets out to make a bad movie despite it happening more often than not. In regards to DEADPOOL, here's hoping that is NOT the case!

DEADPOOL hits cinemas on February 12, 2016.