Although he has successfully ventured into dramas, such as when he starred in Buried for Rodrigo Cortés, without a doubt he has always been much better with humor. But if this Canadian actor, who has never been satisfied with the roles that others offered him, has excelled in something, it was when he knew how to combine that talent with the one he also has for action movies, achieving great blockbusters with the two Deadpool films in which he was also a producer.
Although in the interview with La Vanguardia he does not tire of clarifying that his thing is not dance or dancing, Reynolds has dared to test his skills in both in the original Apple film The Spirit of Christmas, a new version of The A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens in which he plays a contemporary version of Scrooge named Clint Briggs, along with a spirit of Christmas present by Will Farrell. The cast is completed by Octavia Spencer, Tracy Morgan and Rose Byrne.
His film mocks Richard Donner’s Ghosts Attack the Boss and mentions the many “useless” adaptations of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Did you ever hesitate when this project was proposed to you?
The truth is that I do not analyze things like that unless I am the producer of the film. I’ve already made 4 movies as a producer: Deadpool, Free Guy and The Adam Project. I started all of them from scratch with my partner Shawn Levy. But in this case, what attracted me the most was the possibility of working with someone who has been an idol to me throughout my career. Will Ferrell has inarguably contributed more to society’s humorous lexicon than any other comedian. He’s someone I’ve always enjoyed watching perform and am quite obsessed with. I love the vulnerability in his work, and I think that’s what makes him fun and accessible. That’s why for me what decided me was being able to work with Will and share many days of filming with him. It wasn’t until I had accepted that I realized that it was a musical and that I had gotten myself into huge trouble.
He is very close to Hugh Jackman. Did he give you any advice on dancing and singing for the movies?
Hugh was always willing to help me, but it comes so naturally to him that his advice didn’t really help me much. He told me that he had to be very attentive to the rhythm and the times, but I explained to him that he didn’t listen to them, that he help me with something real. But he told me something very useful: he reminded me that the main thing in everything we do in art is to enjoy. And that was something I tried to keep in mind all the time, even in those moments when I was out of breath, which was almost every day. He reminded myself that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a good time and work with someone I’ve always admired. And that attitude not only helped me on filming, but it extended to other aspects of my life, which is why I can say today that it was great advice.
Why do you think this story created by Dickens never gets old?
Because we’ve all been through some point in our lives where we’ve had to deal with miserable people, and it’s been like that for time and time. We constantly come across people who don’t want to see the holistic good in the world. And that’s why I think this story still works. But at the same time, it’s one of those plots that have been reinterpreted in a thousand different ways over and over again, so it’s fun to try to provide one more version and add a color to the many that this classic rainbow has.
What did you discover about the genre while filming this film?
That musicals are tremendously complicated, because there is a lot to do. And when you haven’t spent your life practicing your dance moves or perfecting your voice, you’re just trying to rise to the occasion. Thank God, in a production like this we were able to do all the necessary takes until we got one of them right. Sometimes we did 50, because as much as we have spent months with Will rehearsing, practicing and learning how to dance and sing in a movie, you will never be able to replace a lifetime of doing it, something that many of the cast had done. The truth is that I loved watching the dancers and the singers that worked in the film, because I had a front row seat to enjoy their talent. I can’t admire the community of artists who are dedicated to this more. I am sorry that many times they are not given the attention they deserve in the art world, because they generally appear in the credits simply in the general list of dancers. And yet, they are the mainstays of this form of entertainment and spending time with them was a very special part of this job.
What would you say is more difficult, preparing for a superhero movie or a musical?
I live preparing to make superhero movies, because that is something that I have been doing since I was 20 years old and now I am 46. It is something that I already have incorporated. Doing a fight scene is much easier for me than a dance scene. In a way, it’s already in my blood. I memorize them very quickly, and I’m also always improvising with them. If I make a mistake, I use it to improve the scene. On the other hand, in the dance scenes, if I’m wrong about something, I despair and we have to start all over again. With professional dancers, if the same thing happens to them, you don’t even realize it. That’s why working on this film was a huge challenge for me because action movies and musicals are two completely different disciplines. Dancing and singing is something that is still very strange to me, and I find it truly chilling.
Do you think there were any of your films that would have improved had they been musicals?
The truth is, I’ve done a lot of different things over the years. Some of them were so dysfunctional that they would have been better just leaving out an entire act. Movies are massive collaborations between many different opinions, looks and ideas. And that’s what makes them incredibly special and equally frustrating. I would love to incorporate a musical number into a Deadpool movie. About 4 years ago, with Rhett Reese and Paul Warwick we wrote a Christmas movie starring Deadpool, but it was all up in the air when Disney bought Fox. Maybe one day we can do it.
He tends to handle humor very well. Is it something that comes naturally to you or is there an inside job to achieve it?
I’m not very clear. As the years have passed I have stopped being so controlling and careful about everything. I just let myself go and see what is happening. I think the great virtue of being over 40 is that you relax much more when faced with the idea of ??being a disaster at something. The more I relax, the better things work out for me. If I expect a scene to turn out perfect, the chances of doing it decrease. In the scenes that are very funny in the script, I try to leave a space to incorporate new things that are exciting. In any case, I insist that in this film I did not decide what to leave and what not, because I was not the producer. I just do 30 takes of a scene and try something different on each one. And then they decide what to take and what not, and I get used to the idea that I won’t have the power to decide. But I’m glad they used certain shots that I liked.
Did the producers know if you could sing and dance before they offered you the part?
No, and I don’t want to suggest that any of us in the cast have been a disaster, I’m just clarifying that when you allow yourself to be bad at something, you also give yourself permission to do it well. At the same time, I don’t want to say that I’m brilliant at dancing. But it was a safe place to hold my head and wonder how I was going to do that scene. Singing was very interesting, but what other job gives you the opportunity to work with experts like Justin Paul and Benji Pasek, who did the music for the movie and The Greatest Showman, as well as many other amazing musicals? It’s all about surrendering to them, letting them guide you and doing whatever they ask of you, and that’s how you get the results you need. I didn’t try to be the best singer on the planet, just the best singer I could be. The truth is that with Will we worked as hard as we could and that was part of the fun and the challenge of doing something like this…
