DAD BROMANCE

Free Guy collaborators Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy reunite for another heartfelt action adventure, THE ADAM PROJECT. They tell Total Film how their own relationships with their fathers and experiences as parents helped shape the story of a man coming to terms with his childhood via time travel.

When Total Film usually chats to Ryan Reynolds, he’s a fizzing, fast-talking quipster, rolling out caustic oneliners as deftly as Deadpool. But today when we catch up with him in a dark, wood-panelled hotel room, he’s introspective, heart-on-sleeve and disarmingly open; talking in an uncharacteristically quiet cadence about the difficult relationship he had with his dad (who died in 2020) and a vulnerable, withdrawn pre-teen version of himself. It’s not that Reynolds can’t be serious and circumspect – we’ve seen him essay both in roles such as Buried and Mississippi Grind – but in his most high-profile outings and his business persona as gregarious football club/gin/mobile phone network owner, Reynolds’ default is ‘funny’.

The reason for his contemplation is perhaps his most personal film to date; a re-team with director/ producer Shawn Levy on another warm audience-pleaser after their success with 2021’s Free Guy. The kind of film Reynolds describes as “a high-concept, wish-fulfilment film, not unlike the Amblin movies that I loved growing up”. Levy and he leaned into that nostalgia and sweetness with Free Guy ($331.5m at the box office and an Oscar nod) and they hope to repeat the trick with The Adam Project; ostensibly a timetravel jape that dips into themes of grief, forgiveness, destiny and trauma.