Ryan Reynolds of Blade Trinity Interview
UGO.com
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Ryan Reynolds first rose to fame with Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place and went on to even bigger cult status as the title role in National Lampoon's Van Wilder. He now plays vampire hunter Hannibal King opposite Wesley Snipes and Jessica Biel in Blade: Trinity and will next be seen in the remake of The Amityville Horror.
UGO: How was it shooting in your hometown of Vancouver?
RYAN REYNOLDS: I was a little close to my mother, but I love shooting in my hometown.
UGO: Did your relatives come to set?
RYAN: Yeah, my brothers all came down. I have three older brothers, so they all came down and, much like childhood, got to see me having my ass kicked on a regular basis.
UGO: Are you the youngest?
RYAN: Yeah, I'm the youngest of four.
UGO: So when you were all buffed up, did you take them on?
RYAN: Oh, I was like, "Who wants to f*** with who now?" My brothers, two of them are cops, so no matter what I do...
UGO: They didn't teach you any routines to use for your character?
RYAN: No, no, no. One of them pepper-sprayed me once, but other than that, no.
"I have three older brothers, so they all came down and, much like childhood, got to see me having my ass kicked on a regular basis."
UGO: What?
RYAN: He did, he pepper-sprayed me when we had an apartment together. When he was in police academy, he was at home and he took out his pepper spray and literally, like an idiot, he didn't even know how it worked and just pressed the button. It got me right in the eye. I was 18 years old; I was down on the floor, lying in a shallow pool of my own vomit.
UGO: Why was Hannibal King able to make jokes after Triple H punches him in the face?
RYAN: I guess the humor was more out of fear. I mean, the guy's like a mountain covered in skin. He's also just a sweetheart, and he's got great comedic timing, so it was fun getting in the ring with him. But we really just wanted to make that fight as raw and brutal as possible. Initially, it was written that we would have sort of a kung-fu-style fight, which is really consistent with these kinds of movies, and we both looked at each other like, we're not kung-fu guys. So we just wanted to make it look like a bar fight, just a regular, brutal, ugly bar fight.
UGO: So when you were body-slammed, was that actually you?
RYAN: I wish I could say it was. That is the only moment that isn't me. I wasn't about to have that mountain land on me.
UGO: Were you a comic book fan?
"It got me right in the eye. I was 18 years old; I was down on the floor, lying in a shallow pool of my own vomit."
RYAN: My brother was a huge fan actually, so he freaked out when I got the part. I had a read a few of the Tomb of Dracula ones, but my brother gave me a shirt on my birthday when were shooting Blade that had Hannibal King kicking Blade's ass from 1976.
UGO: Were you nervous kidding around with Wesley Snipes?
RYAN: There was no kidding around with Wesley Snipes. I mean, every moment of that deliciously awkward dynamic was born of a real situation. There's one joke in the movie that I don't like, which is just me saying to Jessie [Biel], "He hates me, doesn't he?" That was not supposed to be in the movie. David [Goyer] called cut already, and I just said that.
UGO: It got a huge laugh, actually.
RYAN: Yeah, it was not my favorite joke, but it ended up in the movie because it was just so real. I mean Wes is Blade and Blade is Wes. He's a very method actor. So to do those scenes with him, you get one shot, you know? There's another scene, which is kind of a glory shot of the three of the Nightstalkers walking away after he's thrown some guy off the ledge. I had one shot to do it. It was originally written as a slow-mo bad-ass shot, but I asked David if I could just give Wes like a dime-store psychoanalysis here and ask him if he wants to sit down with someone and have a little share time, maybe think about blinking once in a while. I got one shot at that because you don't get a lot with Wes, like in terms of, you know, goofing around, and he's very serious about this role, very serious about this movie, so it was something we just kind of threw out at the last minute. He's Blade when he's on that set. I don't think I ever met Wesley Snipes.
UGO: Was getting all buffed up a life-changing experience for you?
RYAN: Not so much. I was a little over it by the end. I still go to the gym once in a while, because if I ever have to get it back, it'd be nice not to have to start from scratch again. But it wasn't life-changing. It became my job two months before shooting. My objective was to get 25 pounds of muscle on, and I got about 22 by the end. It was just non-stop. It wreaks so much havoc on your personal life, so it's not worth it. I have better things to do than be in the gym all day.
UGO: Would you want to do more action movies?
RYAN: Yeah, I'd definitely be up for more, but I can't do an action movie where I'm a guy intermittently clenching his jaw muscles. I'd have to do it where a guy's not taking himself so seriously. I felt like David really imbued some of the traits of Indiana Jones into Hannibal King, and I think that's what attracted me to it. He never took himself too seriously, but yet he still had heart and cared about his friends and cared about the little girl in the movie, so I was kind of touched by that.
"There was no kidding around with Wesley Snipes. I mean, every moment of that deliciously awkward dynamic was born of a real situation. There's one joke in the movie that I don't like, which is just me saying to Jessie [Biel], 'He hates me, doesn't he?' That was not supposed to be in the movie."
UGO: What about a Nightstalkers spin-off?
RYAN: Yeah, that's something I'm signed to do, but at this point it's conjecture because it's something the fans are going to decide.
UGO: Well, who would you fight?
RYAN: Parker Posey's vagina.
UGO: What did you think of Parker Posey as a vampire dominatrix?
RYAN: She was my Ginger Rogers. I just never felt so happy to work with somebody in my entire life. It's all sort of like a dance, and she was just able to go toe-to-toe, step-for-step and then some. She's so much better than I am at it. She's really, really amazing. You could throw as much as you want at her, and she's just gonna throw it right back at you.
UGO: What would you do if you weren't doing this or films in general?
RYAN: Well, based on my lineage, I'd probably be a cop, but I don't think that I would be able to do that. I'd probably be a teacher, that's where I started. I started going to school for it and got sidetracked into [improv troupe] The Groundlings.
UGO: When did you study at The Groundlings?
RYAN: Well, I went to LA to do The Groundlings. I had been doing improv comedy for a few years in Vancouver with a group I formed called Yellow Snow when I was a little kid. I wanted to go to Los Angeles to do Groundlings, and when I got there, I had to do their classes, so I was a little frustrated by that. I kind of wanted to just jump in. I was just a young, cocky, dumb kid and I ended up on a sitcom instead. I ended up auditioning for this sitcom called The Best Years that didn't go. Then I ended up on Two Guys and Girl from that.
UGO: Can you talk about The Amityville Horror? How is it different than the original, and who do you play in the movie?
RYAN: I play George Lutz, actually. Picture me with a beard that's twice as thick as the one in Blade, and that's George Lutz. The movie is a more faithful adaptation of the book, so that was one of the things that drew me to it. The director, Andrew Douglas, is a documentarian but just has a really brilliant visual style. I was just into stretching as an actor, so the movie has no winking, no comedy, nothing. It's just a straight psychological thriller, so I was really curious about that. It concentrates more on the psychological flaws of George Lutz.
UGO: What's the deal with you playing [comic book character] Deadpool?
RYAN: Yeah, I think that it's inspired by Hannibal King, simply because [producer] Avi Arad really wants me to play Deadpool, and I just don't think anyone has an idea how to bring it to the screen. It's a really difficult comic book to adapt.
UGO: Have you ever read any of them?
RYAN: Oh yeah, I've read them all. Deadpool is very similar to Hannibal King. That was kind of the worry I had, so I think that's one of the reasons it just sort of faded away at the time. It's definitely a tough role to cast.
UGO: Have you ever thought about movies you'd want to write?
RYAN: I can barely read scripts. I find them very difficult and boring to read, so I don't know if I'd actually want to write them. But a novel maybe, or a series of one-liners. "Things To Say in Elevators" by Ryan Reynolds.
"I can barely read scripts. I find them very difficult and boring to read, so I don't know if I'd actually want to write them. But a novel maybe, or a series of one-liners. 'Things To Say in Elevators' by Ryan Reynolds."
UGO: Has National Lampoon talked to you about doing another Van Wilder?
RYAN: Yeah, they wrote a script, too.
UGO: Are you interested?
RYAN: No, I just feel like it would just be the same.
UGO: Any other comedic actors you want to work with or actors in general?
RYAN: A lot of the ones I love are dead, like Peter Sellers and John Candy.
UGO: You could do a Christopher Guest movie.
RYAN: I would love to do a Christopher Guest movie at some point. We have half their cast in our film.
UGO: You can ask Parker to put in a good word for you.
RYAN: I'm a huge Christopher Guest fan. Growing up, I loved them all, like Bill Murray and Chevy Chase. I would love to see another Ghostbusters movie being made. It is something I talked to [producer] Toby Emmerich about when he was discussing the Nighstalkers spin-off. I felt like we could go the vampire avenue, or they could be investigators of the paranormal. I just love the idea of ghostbusting.
UGO: Now that you're engaged [to Alanis Morissette], do you see yourself starting a family anytime soon?
RYAN: Wow, I don't know, we'll see. I mean, we'll see, I should call her and find out if she's late. I don't know about any time soon, but we both are very much in the same trajectory in terms of family.
UGO: How'd you ask her?
RYAN: I went to Ottawa, Canada, and I asked her father for permission. It was a tremendous web of lies to get out there. I had to lie to her and tell her I was getting out for lunch. "I'm going out for lunch." I said it the night before and it was 5 AM, and I'm sneaking out of bed and getting on a plane. I go six hours one way, I have an hour to talk to her dad, and then six hours all the way back. I get in, and she's just looking like she's gonna absolutely turn me into some form of ass meat right now, and I got down on one knee, out of exhaustion, and asked her to marry me. She said, "No way!" and I was like, "No way as in no way yes? Or no way you're not marrying me?" She said, "No way as in yes I will marry you."
UGO: After she said yes, did you ask her who that guy is in the song, "You Oughta Know"?
RYAN: No, I do know that and I would never divulge that. George W. Bush.
UGO: What's your favorite moment in Blade: Trinity?
RYAN: I just love the Triple H scene, because it's just fun for me. Also, the Parker Posey scene I wanted to go on forever. But as far as my favorite moment goes, it's not even mine, I think it's just Blade fighting all the vampires in Phoenix Towers at the very end. When the audience just erupts, there's nothing better, I get goosebumps at its hyper-violence. I just think it's fantastic, so those are great. Jessica Biel's fight scenes are pretty kick-ass.
UGO: Were there some very funny outtakes of your scenes with Triple H that are going to be on the DVD?
"Parker Posey and I get in a full-on slap fight like two little girls, just like ridiculous stuff."
RYAN: There are going to be lots of outtakes on the DVD of Triple H and particularly with Parker. Mainly takes that are ruined because David's laughing or there are things that we said that should never be allowed for public consumption. For every line, there's like six different options, things we call each other. Parker Posey and I get in a full-on slap fight like two little girls, just like ridiculous stuff, it was a lot of fun.
UGO: What super power would you like to have?
RYAN: Deadpool has the best superpower, rapier wit.
UGO: What are some of your favorite DVDs that you own?
RYAN: I'm not kidding, Blade. I know that we're at the junket, and I know that they're also paying me to say that, but I really mean that. That opening blood club scene in the first Blade is the greatest thing you could ever watch on a home entertainment system.
UGO: It was the first DVD I ever bought.
RYAN: For me, it was among the first five.
UGO: Now you can get them free.
RYAN: Actually, the Blade: Trinity DVD is gonna be awesome. There are 19 other versions of the torture chamber scene and some of them are even better.