Exclusive: Ryan Reynolds- 'Red Notice' wanted Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and my friendship to be seen on screen

Written By: Pallabi Dey Purkayastha WION Web Team
New Delhi Updated: Nov 08, 2021, 09:57 PM(IST)

Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot and Dwayne Johnson sharing a heatry laugh during 'Red Notice' promotions Photograph:( Instagram )

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"It's pretty funny to be around, and it's just kind of the way it's always been for us: Dwayne Johnson, Gad Gadot and I. So putting up that (the friendship) on the screen was a real pleasure,” Ryan Reynolds told WION exclusively  during a press conference. 

The morning after Diwali—same day his hybrid-release movie ‘Red Notice’ released in theatres in some parts of the world—a very handsome Ryan Reynolds sat down for an exclusive, invite-only press conference with the Asian media--which WION was a part of--where he talked about movies and money, humour and heists, and, of course, his co-stars Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot from their latest heist offering, 'Red Notice'. 

In the film, Ryan Reynolds plays a thief; a conman. When a Korean journalist asked him as to how one prepares for a role like that? He simply answered, "When you work in show business in Hollywood, most of what you're doing or most of the people you're around is some kind of con job."

“What the platform really wanted to put together here was they wanted Dwayne, Gal and I to have a kind of off screen friendship and camaraderie that is, you know, the exact same thing you're seeing on screen. They want, that's what they were paying for. They wanted that on the big screen and they wanted that to transfer over to 'Red Notice' and be a part of the DNA and fabric of the storytelling. And that's what we were excited to give them. So you know, when if you come to dinner with Dwayne and I, you will see we quite literally talk to each other the way, the way we talk to each other in Red Notice. And it's pretty funny to be around, and it's just kind of the way it's always been for us. So putting up that on the screen was a real pleasure,” Ryan Reynolds told WION exclusively when asked about what prompted him to take up this globe-trotting heist movie. 

Also read: ‘Red Notice’ review: All for the star power of Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot & Ryan Reynolds

“I was most interested in working with my friends, with my pals. I love the fact that I got to just show. I didn't have a lot of.. A lot of the movies I do, I produce and I'm writing on, and there's a lot more responsibility. This one, I got to just kind of jump in the sandbox with some friends. I've known for a long time and have fun. And it's not every day that you get to do that. And sometimes you forget this job is fun, and I never forgot it for a second on the set of 'Red Notice', it was really special,” he added further. 


When an Indian outlet asked about that one movie of his that he would like to make in Bollywood, Reynolds had this to say, “Oh, boy, I don't know, I don't know if I would pick any one Bollywood film, but I do think that there's something that Bollywood films have that, you know, Hollywood could certainly use more of. And I think that Bollywood is really adept at infusing joy. I mean, real joy into the work. And that's something that, you know, I meant it when, I mentioned it when 'Free Guy' came out that, you know, there are elements that 'Free Guy' was borrowing from Bollywood.

And really, that was joy. And, you know, the last several years, certainly over here in North America, have been really challenging for so many people, for so many different reasons. And I wanted to make Free Guy. I produced it. I wrote on it. I started and I nurtured it. I love it. I wanted to make it an antidote to those feelings. I wanted it to feel like joy. And so much of what Bollywood puts up on the screen is infused with that in a very organic and very natural way.”

“Free Guy would be a very good one to adapt for Bollywood! I would say 'Deadpool', though, would be a little bit more, a little bit more fun. I think it'd be easier, easier for 'Deadpool' to embrace the Bollywood culture. You know, Guy in Free Guy is an NPC, he's a non playable character. He exists only in the digital world. But 'Deadpool', you know, real flesh and blood. So that would be I think it would be 'Deadpool',” he added. 

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As humour was integral to ‘Red Notice’, an entertainment website asked whether he had improvised his own jokes. To which, Reynolds said, “I improvised a lot of the jokes, yeah. I mean, that's kind of my job. You know, I think it's a little bit of a stretch to say improv or improvise because I write a lot of the jokes, you know, I write eight or nine options for each joke and I leave it to the editor and the director just to decide which ones they feel are suitable for the movie. So I like to give them a whole bunch of options. So yeah, a lot of those little things are just throwaway. You know, you don't even think about them in the moment.


Even right now, I don't even know what joke you're talking about. I can imagine I made a hair joke or two about Dwayne's beautiful “baldy-locks”. But yeah, I don't know.”

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'Red Notice' streams on Netflix from November 12. 

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