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Ryan Reynolds’ Disappearing Act
Scarlett Johansson is hard to ignore. Under the warm Los Angeles sun, she sits on the terrace of the fabled Chateau Marmont, lunching with Sin City co-director Frank Miller and looking perfect. But Ryan Reynolds – bearded, wearing a wool tam, khakis, trek shoes and a soft cloth sweater over an unmatched T-shirt – sips a latte on the other side of the lawn, undistracted. Reynolds and Johansson’s courtship is all over the tabloids but, for now, they don’t acknowledge each other’s presence. Reynolds lights what he calls “a horrible little cigarette,” grimacing with self-contempt. “I had quit,” he says, “but then I had to smoke in my last two movies.” He intends to quit again soon, part of his training for the Boston Marathon next spring. A lean 6’ 2”, Reynolds’ 30-year-old body is sculpted by a fitness regimen begun three years ago for his role in the superhero thriller Blade: Trinity and mostly maintained since. Those abs and pipes are fundamental to the Ryan Reynolds we know, whether he’s shirtless and chopping wood in 2005’s The Amityville Horror or shedding his awkward teenage pounds and emerging as a toned music producer in the romantic comedy Just Friends. For Reynolds, perhaps best known as the victory-lapping goofball from Van Wilder, his physicality figures centrally because he has always played some variation of himself. And so, it is his essential qualities – his body, his smirk, his beard (or lack thereof) – that we remember. This, coupled with the fact that he’s consistently given strong performances in not-so-strong films, has led to an unusual phenomenon: Reynolds the star is much bigger than Reynolds the actor. In other words, he’s more famous than his films. This is partly due to his incessant genre jumping, giving his relationship with fans breadth but not depth. The press, too, has played a role, focusing on his recently ended engagement to Canadian singer Alanis Morissette and his liaison with Johansson. But Reynolds also outshines his achievements because he hasn’t yet found the right part: a sophisticated, multidimensional role that consumes him, where Ryan Reynolds fades out of sight and the character he’s playing is all we see. |
