The Proposal - Ryan Reynolds interview

Ryan Reynolds talks to us about dominating the summer box office with X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Proposal, working with Sandra Bullock having been friends with her for years, being naked on set for three days and some of his future projects…

Q. Congratulations on having quite a summer. No.1 with X-Men and The Proposal - did that surpass even your expectations?
Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, I really don't know what to say other than I certainly can't complain. I'd have to be an award-winning asshole to complain about that. You don't plan it that way and you certainly don't expect it... although with a movie like Wolverine you sort of expect it to be the No.1 movie. If it's not, then something's gone terribly wrong. But with a movie like The Proposal, that's not impacted greatly by its title, and which is a movie that audiences genuinely have to find, and have to relate to in some way or fall in love with the characters, then that's a win. That, to me, feels like a win.

Q. Do you also think it's the right time for these kind of feel-good romantic movies?
Ryan Reynolds: Oh yeah, it's in the middle of the summer movie season when you have weaponised Datsuns running around, and Terminator 15 coming out. It's the time when you want a comedy to work.

Q. You've been friends with Sandra Bullock for some time...
Ryan Reynolds: Nine years, yeah...

Q. Were you always looking to do something together?
Ryan Reynolds: No. Honestly, Sandra and I have almost never discussed work stuff. We'll talk about what our next projects are and that's kind of about it. So, we had no intention of working together. It was something we'd obviously have loved to do but we never vocalised it.

Q. How did you meet?
Ryan Reynolds: That is up for extreme debate. Neither of us really remember where we met. We have a mutual friend that she's very close with and he's also the guy that runs my company. So, we met through him and have been friends ever since. I do remember we went out for dinner one night... I don't know if this was the first time we met. But the night sort of evolved, or devolved into her dirty dancing with George Michael. She wasn't married at the time and I think they were just friends. But for the most part that's the primary night I remember early on in our relationship. I thought: "My God, this woman is so cool. These kinds of things happen to her!" I was pretty new in Hollywood at that point.

Q. Did you ever imagine at that point you'd be on-screen naked alongside her?
Ryan Reynolds: No, I didn't ironically [laughs]. It wasn't part of any kind of career plan. I didn't even think we were going to shoot that scene because she'd never been naked in a movie before. I thought: "OK, it's in the script and they'll shoot it in a way that doesn't really show anything..." But there we were on camera 50ft tall and head to toe naked. So...

Q. How many takes?
Ryan Reynolds: It was almost three days of shooting. It starts off with her in the bathroom with the dog, then there's me on the balcony... it takes a little while. I think we were both pretty happy when that was over.

Q. Did the friendship help with the on-screen chemistry? Because the two of you have a wonderful chemistry on-screen...
Ryan Reynolds: I don't think so, actually. I've worked with friends before and there wasn't chemistry. Chemistry is the last thing in Hollywood that can't be generated by a computer. It's the last sort of truly magical component. It's something that's there or it's not. And if it's not there's nothing you can really do to create it. You've got to internalise and do your own thing. But when it is there, it's pretty incredible. It can be fireworks. And you know it within the first 45 seconds of exchanging dialogue.

Q. Have you ever had a boss that's been as tyrannical as Sandra is towards you at the beginning of the movie?
Ryan Reynolds: Well, I do work in Hollywood! The thing that I always find mystifying about the industry I work in is that you have to be a fly on the wall to really see the monsters… because a lot of people don't show it up close. No one will be a monster to my face. It's always behind closed doors or you see how they deal with somebody in maybe the hospitality industry and you get a little peak behind the curtain as to who this person really is. I've met quite a few monsters in my day. It's taken a little bit more than just casual observation to identify them.

Q. And I guess the trick is still to try and work with them, like your character does?
Ryan Reynolds: Yeah. But my character is kind of held hostage by his own ambition at that point. He's a guy that really wants to get ahead and doesn't really have the balls to quit even though he's working for this awful she-devil. But he inevitably kind of finds a way out that's sort of a win-win for both of us.

Q. What's the oddest proposal you've ever had...
Ryan Reynolds: Well, I don't get proposed to that often [smiles].

Q. I mean in terms of something you've been asked to do - be it an odd role or request?
Ryan Reynolds: Oh, wow... let's think. I've gotten all kinds of strange movie pitch proposals over the years. I always find it interesting when everyone wants to do a sequel to everything. I've never actually done a sequel to one of my own movies but I always find it funny when they try and do the exact same thing. It's like why not just say: "I just want tonnes and tonnes of cash!" That's what producers are doing when they sequel movies. But I've never been offered to play Whoopi Goldberg in the biography of her life. That would be a little absurd.

Q. Is there any character you'd like to revisit? I mean you're revisiting Deadpool for your X-Men spin-off...
Ryan Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. But I feel like I'll be visiting him for the first time because it'll be a bit of a departure from Wolverine. We would go back to the comic book and the source material for that. And it's something that I'm extremely excited about. Sandra and I would love to do something together again as well. Whether it's a totally different premise, or you can find a way to continue this relationship in another film - maybe just do to the divorce! That could be fun. But if sparks are flying and there's some passion, then maybe.

Q. Your career choices thus far have been really interesting, what with a romantic film such as The Proposal preceded by comic book blockbuster X-Men Origins: Wolverine and then the indie film Buried. Are you deliberately trying to keep it as varied as possible?
Ryan Reynolds: It's not a career plan. Honestly, I think it's dumb luck that I'm able to kind of get away doing different types of films in different genres. There's always a tendency to kind of stick with what works, or stick with one particular kind of brand or movie. But so far I've been getting away with it, so I'm going to continue to do that for as long as I can.

Q. What kind of preparation are you doing for Buried [in which he plays a contract worker in Iraq who is abducted and buried underground with only a limited amount of time to save himself]? It sounds really claustrophobic…
Ryan Reynolds: I really don't know. This is the strangest film I've ever done. I'll be the only person in the movie. So, I'm still trying to figure that out. I have a short but impactful amount of time to figure that out and that's all I'm doing when I get home. I won't bury myself, of course... that would be a sad end! And then the plan is to do Deadpool after that.