Rated RR

Who doesn’t love Ryan Reynolds? We talk to Hollywood’s wittiest superhero about saving Samuel L Jackson’s butt, staying spandex-ready for Deadpool 2, and taking care of business into his forties, and beyond

- Jamie Millar

One thing you learn quite early on about Ryan Reynolds is that he’s very, very busy. As a result, his interview with Men’s Health is repeatedly scheduled and rescheduled. Given Reynolds’ lengthy to-do list and gleaming movie-star status, this flakiness is entirely understandable and reasonable. Somewhat less expected is the sincerity with which he apologises for all the chopping and changing.

What quickly emerges is that Reynolds is one of Hollywood’s good guys. When he eventually talks to MH, the 40-year-old actor is in preproduction for the keenly awaited sequel to Deadpool. Despite a relatively meagre $72m budget (that’s barely enough to keep Robert Downey Jr’s goatee trimmed on an Avengers film), the gleefully immature anti-superhero movie earned $980m, making it one of 2016’s highest grossing releases. And not just in the fart-gag sense. By contrast, Suicide Squad, which came out the same year and aimed at a similar graphic novel-reading demographic, cost $219m and made $932m. In doing so, Deadpool smashed the record set by 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded to become the most successful ‘R-rated’ movie (adopts Kanye voice) of all time.