Reynolds Says He ‘Let Go of Payment’ to Make ‘Deadpool’

Ryan Reynolds has had a diverse acting career, featuring in everything from Scrubs to Bullet Train. Yet, no role has shaped his career quite like Deadpool. Reynolds first brought the quirky antihero to life in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. His unique sense of humor and charisma quickly made Deadpool a standout character, leading to two box office hits and this summer’s highly anticipated film, Deadpool & Wolverine. Despite the success, Reynolds never imagined it would turn out this way.

“No part of me was thinking when Deadpool was finally greenlit that this would be a success,” Reynolds revealed.

“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.”

From this experience, Reynolds learned a crucial lesson. According to him, “time and money” are the biggest threats to creativity in a unique project like a Deadpool film.

“It was a lesson in a couple of senses,” Reynolds explained.

“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. I remembered wanting to feel that more — not just on Deadpool, but on anything.”

Reynolds will have an opportunity to experience that feeling and much more when Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on Friday, July 26.