If you didn’t’ notice from the title, I have a hunch that Ryan Reynolds (and frequently Deadpool) may very well be the person/subject I’ve covered the most in my time at CHUD. To be fair, the dude is attaching himself to a ton of projects, but the constant non-movement on this film in particular is becoming kind of maddening, and it will be a welcome relief to write about something actually happening. This new interview with Reynolds in the LA Times is notably interesting however, and beyond maintaining that he is totally committed to the character, he reveals what about the script makes him so passionate.
“It goes in such a different direction than a superhero movie usually goes… It’s a nasty piece of work. It’s just based in so much emotional filth, completely. It’s like Barfly if it were a superhero movie. It sort of treads into the world of an emotionally damaged person. I always say that Deadpool is a guy in a highly militarized shame spiral…. It’s so different than the superhero movies to date, it departs so far from that.”
I mean, yeah, that sounds pretty great. Get Green Lantern wrapped up and make the thing already.
“With Deadpool, it’s a lot like going to prison for the first day… you got to walk up and hit the biggest guy you see to establish a bit of cred. With Deadpool, early on you have to establish that moral flexibility. There’s a gamble to it — you’re going to lose a few people right at the beginning but you take the gamble and know that eventually you’re going to win them back. You won’t lose the hard-core fans of the character, they already know who he is. We have to play to a broader audience than that. As an actor you have to be willing to do something like … back in Vancouver we used to call it a shit burger. “You gotta eat the shit burger to get to the cookies.” And yes, I want to write a cookbook about that…”
I’m guessing that they’re shit burgers, because Hero Complex turned them into “[nasty] burgers.” That bracketed euphemism thing is a censorship trend that needs to die.
Reynolds has never been faulted for a lack of passion, and he keeps it high for Deadpool, despite what is now years worth of the scheduling sidewalk dance. My personal hope is that the film rolls based on his schedule, and Robert Rodriguez is shed as a potential director in favor of someone with a lighter slate and more appropriate skills. If Machete is what happens when Rodriguez is overseeing several projects simultaneously, then please let him overschedule his way right the fuck off this film.
Also notable from the interview is the assurance that Deadpool will in no way work off of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This is not news, but it’s a fact that can not be emphasized and repeated enough.
The rest of the piece has a few more quotes and general summing up of the project’s history if you’ve missed it so far.