Ryan Reynolds Is Wrong About Comedy
Most people would think Ryan Reynolds is an expert on comedy, especially after the Hollywood funnyman cracked us all up in Deadpool & Wolverine. However, he got called out recently on X when it was announced that he would be part of Variety’s Actors On Actors series, with one user pointing out that Andrew Garfield would be discussing performing a role involving cancer and grief, and Reynolds would simply discuss playing Deadpool. The Marvel Cinematic Universe actor responded with a post about how comedy is just as hard to perform as drama, but here’s the thing: Ryan Reynolds is completely wrong in his attempted defense of comedy.
Ryan Reynolds Goes On Defense
In the original X post, @drivcmycar alluded to the film We Live In Time, juxtaposing how Andrew Garfield would tell Variety about how he portrayed the heartbreaking struggle of a husband whose wife decides to forgo cancer treatment with how the other actor would just talk about playing Deadpool. This prompted Ryan Reynolds to post a lengthy reply “in defense of comedy” in which he claimed that it was just as difficult as drama but that we don’t notice because “comedy is meant to look and feel effortless” and drama is not. With respect to the insanely successful funnyman, though, we have to disagree. Good dramatic acting has always been harder to pull off than good comedic acting and always will be.
Ryan Reynolds’s basic thesis here is that drama is designed for us to “see it’s difficult” and that comedy requires just as much work but we don’t notice because it looks easy and effortless when pulled off the right way. However, you can tell how wrong he is by simply thinking back on your own life. For example, you’ve almost certainly made people laugh with a good joke from time to time, but how often have you moved people to tears with a display of raw emotion?
Obviously, Ryan Reynolds is a funny guy. With the Deadpool films, he has proven that comedy and superhero cinema go together like peanut butter and jelly. But as Deadpool, he doesn’t even have to show his face most of the time, and the beginning and end of his funniest scenes just involve him combining some vulgar quips with body language. Even if we limit ourselves to the world of Marvel movies, it’s clear that his Deadpool performance can’t really compare to Anthony Hopkins’ pathos as Odin, Willem Dafoe’s mania as the Green Goblin, or Robert Downey Jr’s utter transformation into Iron Man.
Stiff Dramatic Competition
If we go outside the realm of superhero cinema, Ryan Reynolds’ defense of comedy becomes even more ludicrous. Does anyone think it’s harder to tell a funny joke behind a funnier mask than it was for Daniel-Day Lewis to embody Abraham Lincoln or for Jamie Foxx to embody Ray Charles? Is it more difficult to quip about chimichangas than it was for Denzel Washington to perform in Training Day or for Tom Hanks to perform in Forrest Gump?
Those actors were notably all Best Actor winners, and that brings me to my final point: just how often does anyone bring home the Best Actor Oscar for a funny role, much less a superhero role? The closest we have come in recent years is Joaquin Phoenix winning the Oscar for Joker, and he ironically earned that award by flexing his dramatic chops rather than just telling jokes. His performance in that film is proof that great actors can be both funny and dramatic, and Ryan Reynolds should take note that Phoenix’s dramatic moments obviously took far more intensity (“maximum effort,” if you will) than his deliberately bad stand-up comedy routines.
This isn’t meant to be a criticism of Ryan Reynolds himself. He’s a comedy legend, and Deadpool & Wolverine remains one of the best films we’ve seen in years. But making audiences laugh is the easiest form of acting, especially when you have a team of production experts and Hollywood’s biggest studio helping each punchline land. And until he makes like Jim Carrey and shows us that he has true depth and range as an actor, he’ll remain a clown who simply dreams of being something more.
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