Ryan Reynolds is planning his 50th birthday party. And the theme is, well, unusual to say the least.
“We’re having a check-your-prostate party,” Reynolds joked to Willie Geist about the upcoming milestone, which he’ll mark in October.
“That’s coming for you pretty soon, brother,” Willie quipped.
Recorded in front of a live audience, Reynolds joined Willie in New York City on April 7 to tape the latest Sunday Sitdown Live for Sunday TODAY. The event was sponsored by More to Parkinson’s and brought by Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc., with venue sponsorship by City Winery.
During their hour-long conversation, Reynolds’ touched on his diverse array of projects, including co-owning a sports team, his stakes in Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile, the possibility of another “Deadpool” installment. He also opened up about his father, who died from Parkinson’s disease in 2015, parenting his four kids and, of course, birthdays.
“I found it was a good sort of milestone of, like, ‘How am I doing,’” Willie said of turning 50 last year.
“I think about that stuff all the time. I’m 49 now,” Reynolds replied. “I really think that knowing yourself is the greatest superpower on earth, you know? I don’t shy away from it.”
The Wrexham Journey: ‘I’m Just So Blown Away by it All’
In fact, there’s not a whole lot Reynolds shies away from, choosing instead to pursue his long list of passions. Among them? The Wrexham Association Football Club, the soccer team he purchased with fellow actor Rob McElhenney in 2021, an endeavor that he said has been “one of the great loves of my life.”
“In every country in the world, there’s a Wrexham, you know?” Reynolds said. “And these are just towns that feel like they’ve been forgotten or lost, and industry left them, and, you know, they sort of lost that sort of mutual feeling of belonging to something. I’m just so blown away by it all.”
The journey of the underdog Wales-based team, the third oldest professional football club in the world, is chronicled in Reynolds’ docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham,” which has nabbed 10 Emmys since debuting in 2022.
The series tracks the team’s rise from relative obscurity to now broaching Premier status, and the story is one for the history books.
“We were as low as you get. We were close to a beer league when we started,” Reynolds told Willie. “You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who would say the name, ‘Wrexham.’ And now, they can’t say it without an eating grin on their face.”
Another ‘Deadpool’?
Along with Wrexham, Reynolds also heads up Maximum Effort, the film production company and marketing agency he founded in 2018.
The company’s name is a nod to Reynolds’ blockbuster movie franchise “Deadpool,” and the actor told Willie that the film company is intended to spotlight storytelling and bring people together in “unexpected ways.”
On the subject of coming together, Reynolds recently joined his Marvel co-star Hugh Jackman in purchasing an Australian sailing team. The two friends last worked together on the 2024 movie “Deadpool & Wolverine,” and fans may be wondering if there’s another “Deadpool” film on the horizon.
The answer is: maybe.
“I have some stuff kind of written,” Reynolds told Willie of the possibility of another installment. But according to the actor, even if there is another movie, it likely wouldn’t be centered around Deadpool.
“I think he’s a supporting character. He’s a guy that is great in a group,” he added.
On Family: ‘My Wife and Kids Are Everything’
Reynolds’ 3-year-old son, Olin, is, surprisingly, a big fan of the edgy superhero. “My son, that’s all he wants, is, ‘Daddy, let’s watch “Deadpool Wolverine,”‘ laughed Reynolds.
Given his age, however, Reynolds said he doesn’t let him watch any of the “hardcore” parts.
Wryly calling himself “Dad of the Year,” he still joked to Willie, “Don’t call any authorities.”
“They’re waiting outside,” Willie retorted.
On a more serious note, Reynolds and Willie also delved into the importance of family and their shared experience of having a father with Parkinson’s disease.
Willie’s father, former CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Geist, 80, announced in 2012 that he had been living with the illness for years. Reynolds’ father, James, died in 2015 after suffering from the Parkinson’s for more than two decades.
I can’t think of anything more isolating or lonesome than no longer being a reliable narrator in your own life.
ryan reynolds on his late father, James Reynolds
According to Reynolds, a paid spokesperson for Acadia Pharmaceuticals, the disease really “unraveled” his father’s life.
“I can’t think of anything more isolating or lonesome than no longer being a reliable narrator in your own life,” Reynolds said of his late father.
And while they didn’t always “see eye-to-eye,” the actor says that there are “many moments I have in my life now, where I wish my dad could see.”
A father himself, Reynolds shares four children with wife Blake Lively: James, 11, Inez, 9, and Betty, 6, and Olin.
“My wife and kids are everything. I mean, that’s it,” Reynolds told Willie. “When we finally close our eyes to this mortal dumb show, those are the ones that are going to matter, you know?”
‘I’ve Never in My Life Been More Proud of My Wife’
Reynolds has been a support for his wife during a high-profile legal battle with actor Justin Baldoni, Lively’s co-star and the director of the 2024 movie “It Ends With Us.”
Lively claims that Baldoni engaged in toxic on-set behavior and a subsequent smear campaign against her. A judge on April 2 dismissed 10 of Lively’s 13 claims, including defamation and sexual harassment, in part because Lively was not an employee, but rather an independent contractor. The judge allowed three claims to proceed to trial: breach of contract, retaliation and aiding and abetting in retaliation. Baldoni has denied Lively’s allegations.
“You and Blake, for the last year and half, have gone through this very public legal proceeding,” Willie said. “How have you guys managed that as a family?”
“You really see kind of the illusion behind so much of this stuff, you know? Digital life versus real life,” Reynolds said.
“I’ll just say, I’ve never in my life been more proud of my wife,” he continued. “People have no idea what’s really going on, you know? And I’ve just never in my life been more proud of someone with that level of integrity that brings that with them and carries that with them in everything that they do.”
