We Talked DEADPOOL with Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin in NY

The story behind the new R-rated action comedy DEADPOOL is as fascinating as the Fox film itself. I had the pleasure of being part of an intimate conversation with Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson/Deadpool), Morena Baccarin (Vanessa) and a few colleagues, where the actors talked about the movie’s journey, the future of the merc with a mouth, and more.

Alert: Minor spoilers ahead!

DesdeHollywood: What parts did you improvise and was relieved to see in the silver screen?

Ryan Reynolds: There’s lots of little chunks that I was happy with, like when “It’s funny there’s only two of you, it’s like the studio couldn’t afford another X-Man,” I liked that and it’s a nice group effort, a collaboration. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have been very good friends of mine for six years and we’ve developed the script together. In a weird way we operated in a little writer’s circle, we sit down and kind of just write and hammer out ten different options every once in awhile. It was fun, and it was a dream job.

Morena Baccarin: It was very Impressive to watch them work together.

Q: What drew you to this character?

Ryan Reynolds: In 2004 I was introduced to Deadpool for the first time, I thought the protagonist of Deadpool is morally flexible. I thought it was unusual to have a character that doesn’t necessarily fight on the side of good or bad, he kind of just does what he wants to do. I thought that was kind of dangerous and disruptive in the comic book universe. Of course no one had the balls to make it and the movie sat on a shelf for years and it wasn’t until the fans saw some leaked test footage that we did and they overwhelmed the studio with hate mail, tweets and anything else that they can do. They said “we want a Deadpool movie and we want it now!” People had this false idea that I have been an ambassador for Deadpool for eleven years. Yes I have, but I got nothing done. It was all the fans and I just went along with it. Thankfully they did the hard work for me.

Q: What do you think about the way the movie came out?

Ryan Reynolds: I could not be happier, I have a producer credit in the movie but that producer credit was only there to protect Deadpool. I was there When they didn’t protect him on X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and that hurt and I didn’t have a say then. Now as a producer of the film I can say that’s not how the character should be portrayed, I knew every little detail and was probably annoying to be around. For me it was all about details like in his bed, what turns him on? Obviously unicorns, those are the things I am protective of.

Morena Baccarin: Obviously it was a terrible film (Laughs). It’s a dream come true, it was awesome to be excited about shooting something, read a great script, see it come to life and have it to be the movie you thought you were actually making. That is one of the things that doesn’t often happen as an actor and Ryan was doing a lot of quality control and staying true to the fans, telling a story that is this guy and not getting the R rating was one of the biggest battles. I think we are all happy.

Q: Any idea on how that footage leaked?

Ryan Reynolds: Some sort of criminality went on behind the scenes that I don’t approve of, honestly. There has been a lot of speculation about that and all I can say is that it was one of the four of us: Me, Rhett Reese, Tim Miller or Paul Wernick. Somebody did it.

Q: How was the training for the fight scenes?

Ryan Reynolds: I have one hell of a stuntman in the film, it was two of them Alex and Adrienne. Alex is in Cirque Du Soleil; he would do a lot of crazy acrobatic stuff. The problem was that I thought I would get away with doing less but their heads looked different than mine so we really didn’t have a great body match and we had to do tons more than I had expected. But then again I had to end up jumping in because some of the fight work is character work as well: Deadpool fights funny sometimes and one thing we really wanted in the film was the stark contrast between the violence and the comedy, we wanted to have both of these things dovetailed in a way we have never seen before in a film. You have these scenes that are vicious and they were undercut by the comedy, it was a unique opportunity to put some on the screen, in the superhero genre.

Q: How is Deadpool different from other characters you had done before?

Ryan Reynolds: I don’t know, they are always different. It’s a very broad question I honestly do not know; Deadpool is different from any other role that I have ever played.

Q: Why was it so important for you to do this role?

Ryan Reynolds: Especially now that there is a complete saturation of superheroes, we are standing at this apocalypse of superheroes and Deadpool not only runs counter to that but there is a commentary there that’s interesting and I think fans love him because they feel like he is saying and doing everything that they would say and do if they were actually in that comic book movie. It is why I feel to some degree it became a cultural phenomenon in less than a year. I’m not just talking about the Deadpool fans, I’m talking about the general audience.

Q: Did you take the suit home?

Ryan Reynolds: Of course, during the last day of shooting I just packed the thing up and I said, “If someone needs the suit they can fucking try and get it.”

Q: Weren’t there like eight suits?

Ryan Reynolds: We actually had 9 suits and destroyed by stunts and just beating the crap out of them and there were two that were left somewhat passable.

Q: What was it like inside the costume?

Ryan Reynolds: Picture strapping your entire body into a tight red body condom, that’s what it is. The first time you’re in it, it’s a little unnerving and then you get use to it but anytime there was a new suit that was tough because I would have to blast the heat in my dressing room to get it more loose.

Desdehollywood: Now that the suit is in your possession what do you plan to do with it for the rest of 2016?

Ryan Reynolds: It’s funny that you say that. The marketing for Deadpool has been an extension of the shooting process for the film. We really never stopped, We’ve been doing viral videos and anything that we can possibly do, I’ve used that suit at home but not as much as I used any other suit in the movie. We have done a ton of stuff with it, I love it and it’s getting a hell of a lot used. I have as much fun with the marketing stuff as I do the film.

Q: You are ugly throughout most of the film, did you feel like this time you’re going to show how much of a good actor you are than a good-looking one?

Ryan Reynolds: You gotta go all in; you can’t do a Deadpool movie and fake it. What’s funny is that in the original script we developed the mask was off a lot more and then when we started playing with the suit I took a camera for a couple of days before shooting and just mess with the suit and just expressed and tried to see what it looked like and how much I can communicate in the suit. It was so much more than we thought. We ended up leaving on the mask 20% more in the film than we have scripted and that actually is a time saver for us, getting the scar makeup on takes four hours for just the face and the arms. For the whole work shop fight sequence I am naked, I’m in the scar makeup head to toe and that took up to eight or nine hours and then you start a fifteen hour shoot day, those days are just a write off. By the end of the day I feel like I’ve took ten hits of acid and a pint of whiskey and tried to have a conversation with someone.

Q: Was it easy for you guys to have a chemistry and to make it believable?

Morena Baccarin: We took a lot of drugs (Laughs)

Ryan Reynolds: We just now have chemistry. I can only hang out with heavily pregnant women. It’s been a thing for me, I’m working on it with my therapist.

Morena Baccarin: It’s a true story, I remember Ryan telling me “Whatever you do just don’t get pregnant or I’m going to fucking punch you in the face.” One of the first things I did when I got pregnant was texting him

Ryan Reynolds: We were very lucky from the get-go. We knew each other before, it takes a very unique person like Morena to play this role, you have to be able to go toe to toe with a guy who is a mentally unhinged mercenary, she does it so beautifully and we knew the first time she did that scene with me in the bar we were so right. This is so good and it’s a tough thing to do. You are walking a tightrope there, they’re two very broken people but are both telling a story that’s probably untrue, you have two liars having a scene together, and they really want to fuck each other. You kind of get that sense that now we are really in a Deadpool movie and that for me is when I really felt like we are making it.

DesdeHollywood: Now we have Spider-Man shared by Marvel Studios and Sony. Do you see yourself doing occasional cameos in future Marvel films?

Ryan Reynolds: I don’t know, I would sooner be in a Sesame Street episode as Deadpool. I would actually love that but with all that licensing shit is such a nightmare, I don’t know how they deal with it.

Morena Baccarin: It would also have to be in the right way, you would have to be Deadpool in that world.

Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, the studio is already trying to figure out how can we put Deadpool in the X-Men, and you kind of have to protect it too. X-Men writers are X-Men writers and Deadpool writers are Deadpool writers, you can’t just have a bunch of X-Men writers say “We will write Deadpool for our movie.” That doesn’t work that way. They always want to do a crossover and that sort of stuff and I believe it’s possible, there’s certainly room for it and we have some pretty good ideas about how it could happen but it would have to be in a very carefully constructed way.

Q: How was it getting those takes as Wolverine?

Ryan Reynolds: The Best part about it was Hugh Jackman is the greatest sport, as everybody knows he’s the nicest guy. He makes ice-cream look like murder, I adore Hugh and everything was vetted through him. I called him and would say “Hugh, I’m thinking about stapling your face to mine, how would that make you feel?” It was a blast, just being able to break through that fourth wall and be so meta.

Q: Your social media tone is very similar to Deadpool. How much of that is you and how much of it is embodying the character?

Ryan Reynolds: I was not on social media before Deadpool. We have shared the same brain and heart, I don’t know how much of that is Deadpool and how much of that is me, I’m happy that it might be confusing. I’m fine with that and if you get an email from me half the time you might think it may be from Deadpool.

Q: What message does your character send at the end by him accepting the way he is?

Ryan Reynolds: With the world’s greatest line..

Morena Baccarin: With the face that I’d be happy to sit on, sitting on pizza face is ok. I think it is a beautiful message, they’re both kindred spirits and they’ve been through a lot together. I’m not going to lie to you looking at that thing was crazy and the first time I saw it I said “I got to kiss that?”

Ryan Reynolds: I remember when we first kissed there was a slight squishing sound, it was at the end of the day and it was hot and nasty.

Morena Baccarin: There was red stuff coming out but it was all very alive, it was oozing. But that’s what was beautiful about them that they’re going to make it.

Q: Is that what makes it a perfect Valentine’s Day movie?

Morena Baccarin: Absolutely, that and all the great sex montage (Laughs)

Ryan Reynolds: Listen, we did some viral marketing outdoors that might have yearned some Nicholas Sparks stuff but that’s sort of true in a weird way, what tethers Deadpool to Planet Earth is her. What unhinges him in the worst way possible is when she’s taken away, that stuff is the heartbeat to the film.

Morena Baccarin: Super romantic, she gets taken, he goes after her and she’s pissed as hell at him and then they get over it. It’s awesome.

Q: Do they have matching holiday sweaters?

Ryan Reynolds: Oh my God are you kidding me? I can’t make love without a holiday sweater.

DesdeHollywood: What do you want for Deadpool 2? What is it exactly that you think should be necessary?

Ryan Reynolds: I want Tony Stark! Deadpool 2 is such a tricky thing; we’ll circle back to that question. It’s a tricky one, sequels are always tricky, if we are lucky enough to get there then we’ll talk about it.

Q: Who were your favorite superheroes/villains growing up?

Morena Baccarin: I’ve always loved the Joker growing up, it’s much easier for me to name villains. Why is that? Catwoman kind of rides the lines between superhero and villain, I guess she’s more of a villain.

Ryan Reynolds: For me Chevy Chase, big superhero for me as a kid, one of the biggest. Villains? I don’t know. Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. No I like Mulroney and I’m a friend of his son. Now I am in trouble. Don’t worry, Canada can’t afford secret service.

Desdehollywood: What’s next for you guys?

Morena baccarin: I have to give birth, then I’ll probably start shooting Gotham again.

Ryan Reynolds: I’m reading “Delivering babies for dummies,” in case I have to do it today.

Desdehollywood: Does it have a Deadpool cover?

Ryan Reynolds: Exactly, that’s just what a kid needs to see as they enter the world then go back in (Laughs).
Deadpool is an eleven year dream for me, it creates an existential vortex at the end of it. Now I’m standing around sort of what’s next, I guess I’ll go raise my daughter.

Q: You said that seeing Deadpool was a good Valentine’s day plan. What are your plans?

Morena Baccarin: You just totally stomped me, I’ve been trying to desperately move through this week without having a child.

Ryan Reynolds: I’m going to have to scramble and figure that out. We still have a few days left, we have plenty of time.

Q: With the success of this movie, will it make you forget about Green Lantern?

Ryan Reynolds: No, because I remind you of that movie. You should see some of the stuff we cut out.

Q: So you feel as if you redeemed yourself?

Ryan Reynolds: You can frame it like that but at the end of the day I’ll poke a little fun at it. You still have 160-170 men, women and youngsters working on a movie, trying to make it as good as possibly can and sometimes it doesn’t work. I know Green Lantern didn’t work because we didn’t have a script, studios will green light these movies when they have a poster, an actor and a release date and they’re starting to learn that that doesn’t always work and that was no exception. The great thing about Deadpool is that we’ve had this absolutely fantastic script for six years. It was so hard to get made and it was frustrating because here is a superhero movie that extensively will work at the box office, it will please all of the die hard fans and the people that are uninitiated alike and it had a script for six years, that never happens. It always happens when they see a picture of a superhero and go “I want that one,” the studio executives say “I want it next year,” and then they start shooting despite the fact that they’re not prepared. That’s my long winded way of saying I have no idea if they’ll ever forget about it or not. I’m fine either way.

DEADPOOL is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Based upon Marvel Comics most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts an alter ego. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.