Ryan Reynolds Was In The X-Files, See Who He Played
Before Ryan Reynolds was a mega-star, he took a lot of small bit parts. See him in this episode of The X-Files, and guess what happens.
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If you were watching television in 1998 and tuned into mid-season replacement show Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, you would probably not say: that Ryan Reynolds fellow is going to be one of the biggest movie stars in the world. But that is the way things have turned out, with Reynolds anchoring his very own superhero franchise with Deadpool, making his way into the Fast & Furious franchise via Hobbes & Shaw, and doubtlessly planning on showing up in Star Wars as a snide droid of some kind. But like most actors, before he hit it big with a role that would define his public persona (in Reynolds’ case, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder in 2002), he took a lot of small roles. And one of those small roles as in the cold open of an episode of 1990s sci-fi sensation The X-Files, so you know something bad happened to him. Just look how sad he is:
And indeed, something bad did happen to the character Ryan Reynolds played in The X-Files third season episode Syzygy. One of the so-called “Monster of the Week” episodes unconnected to the larger mythology of alien invasions and cigarette-smoking men, Syzygy opens with a bunch of teenagers out in the woods. While this is the traditional purview of getting chopped into little pieces by a homicidal maniac, The X-Files went in a slightly different direction.
In this case, we see a young, chubby-cheeked Ryan Reynolds eulogizing a high school friend in tears. We also see a makeshift memorial shrine to someone named Bruno, and Reynold’s bizarre attempt at a New Hampshire accent (give him a break, he’s Canadian) slowly clues us in that this good friend of his was the victim of some kind of cult. Reynold’s character (charmingly named Jay DeBoom, or Boom to his friends) is approached by two curly-haired girls who ask him for a ride home, because the cult is said to be planning to kill a blonde virgin next. Smash cut to the next scene, and Reynold’s Jay DeBoom is hanging from the side of cliff, while the two teen girls merrily pick flowers above him. Cue X-Files theme.
Around this time, Ryan Reynolds appeared in a TV movie of Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Melissa Joan Hart, which served as both a pilot for the eventual series and a warning for Reynolds to stay away from more dark magic. After starring as the title character in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, he followed up with a supporting part in Blade: Trinity (where he reportedly teamed up with comedian Patton Oswalt to make Wesley Snipes look as ridiculous as possible). He segued into a different X-franchise with the universally detested X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and eventually managed to get a different take on Deadpool going. He currently has an Apple TV musical re-imagining of A Christmas Carol in the works with Will Ferrell, and a feel-good science fiction film called The Adam Project coming to theaters. But hopefully with all his success, Ryan Reynolds still sometimes takes a moment to mourn poor Bruno.
