Ryan Reynolds is becoming a big player in action movies, playing Deadpool and appearing in the upcoming flick The Hitman's Bodyguard. And while he used to do a good percentage of his stunts for these types of roles, he recently revealed that he now relies on a stuntman--or more accurately, stuntmen--following some big injuries he incurred on the set of the 2013 movie Safe House. He said that his doctor basically forbade him to keep doing stunts at the time. Reynolds noted:
I've had some bad injuries doing stunts. I broke a couple of vertebrae in my neck. It was a bad situation. I remember the doctor sitting in the office - it was about the seventh time I had been there that year - and he writes on a prescription pad, rips off the note and it reads 'Stuntman'. Point taken. So now I use four different guys that come with me. Thankfully nothing scary happened on this one.
By this one, he's talking about The Hitman's Bodyguard, which he filmed with Samuel L. Jackson and which is in theaters next month. Ryan Reynolds is currently also in production for Deadpool 2, but if you thought it was actually him doing all the fun action-sequences as Deadpool, you'd be very wrong. (Honestly, in fact, it's probably even easier for stuntmen to do Reynolds' stunts in Deadpool 2 than in other movies, thanks to the suit.) After all, Ryan Reynolds told Empire that he'd gotten some "bad injuries" and stunts are out of the question, now.
During the filming of Safe House, Ryan Reynolds was super open about giving Denzel Washington a black eye, but I don't remember him admitting at any point that he'd injured himself to the point that he was told not to do any major stuntwork down the line. Later, months after the movie came out, he went to the doctor and learned some vertebrae had broken while the actor was filming the movie. After breaking his C5 and C6 vertabrae (it probably also helps that he's now 40), those stuntmen really come in handy.
Stunt people are frequently used on the sets of major action movies, but we hear more and more stories all the time about casts doing their own stuntwork. Recently for The Mummy to film that insane plane stunt, not just Tom Cruise but other members of the cast had to do the zero gravity bit in order to get the close-ups. And around the time that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 came out, Chris Pratt told a story about doing a stunt for the Marvel movie that ended in him being knocked unconscious. Although it's less fun that it's generally stunt guys doing all of the cool Deadpool and Hitman's Bodyguard stuff, it sounds like Ryan Reynolds tried to keep doing stunts as long as he could until his doctor put the kibosh on the practice.
While Ryan Reynolds may not be able to do a lot of heavy lifting on his movie sets, at least he's still proven he can carry a kid around on the set (or was that also a stunt double?) and more. And let's be honest, he looks pretty freaking sweet just lounging around.
The Hitman's Bodyguard is out on August 18. To catch Deadpool 2, you'll have to wait until June 1, 2018.
