Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Reynolds spent the early 2000s being cast as the handsome one who talks too fast: National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Just Friends, Definitely, Maybe, The Proposal. He was very good at it, and it capped him. Two attempts at comic-book stardom made things worse, first a version of Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) that the film barely allowed to speak, then Green Lantern (2011).

What he is actually good at is timing wrapped in a defensive layer of irony that occasionally slips. Deadpool (2016) worked because the joke rate is high enough to disguise how sincere the film is underneath, and because Reynolds can play both registers inside a single line. The proof he can drop the armour entirely is Buried, ninety minutes of one man in a coffin with a phone, where the wisecracks are a coping mechanism that runs out on camera. The Voices, Mississippi Grind and The Nines are the other small films where somebody asked him to be uncomfortable and he obliged.

Since then he has become an industry rather than an actor. He was the world's second-highest-paid actor in 2020 and 2024, he has two Primetime Emmy Awards, and his films as a leading man have grossed $6.6 billion. Free Guy, Red Notice, Detective Pikachu, 6 Underground, IF and Deadpool & Wolverine all run on the same charm engine, tuned for maximum reach. The persona is now the product. The open question is whether anything gets him back into a room with no jokes in it.