How Hugh Jackman Left ‘Biggest Impression’ on Ryan Reynolds First Day They Met: 'Meant So Much' (Exclusive)
The 'Deadpool & Wolverine' costars tell PEOPLE about becoming friends 17 years ago
Before Ryan Reynolds was crushing the box office as Deadpool, he was a rising star who had just landed the opportunity of a lifetime.
The actor recalls the first time he met his fellow X-Men mutant Hugh Jackman 17 years ago in this week’s cover story, which marks PEOPLE's first-ever collectible side-by-side covers, featuring both of the Deadpool & Wolverine costars.
Prior to shooting his role in Jackman’s 2009 movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Reynolds arrived on the Sydney set unsure of what awaited. The superhero film was “the biggest movie I'd ever worked on,” he says, and he’d been hired just “two or three weeks” before.
Because the industry was partially frozen by the 2007-'08 writers’ strike, the script Reynolds had at the time was also unsettlingly spotty.
“It would just say, ‘Deadpool/Wade Wilson shows up, says funny stuff, keeps talking, doesn't stop,’ ” recalls the star. “I was just basically told just to pull the string on my back and just go. [And] I don't really actually improvise as much as I write. I'll write 10 options for a joke or five options. I don't have that Robin Williams gift where you can just throw him out there and he'll just go.”
Sitting beside Reynolds, 47, for their joint cover story, Jackman, 55, shakes his head. “I'm going to push back a little on that,” he says. “I've seen how much you write, and that's true. But if you are thrown something, you improv like no one else.”
Still, that day walking on set was eye-opening. “I was blown away. And I was nervous as hell,” says Reynolds. “I was walking through the trailers, jet-lagged, disoriented, feeling really green and kind of out of my depth. It was just like, what's going to happen?”
Then Jackman appeared in the abyss of the film’s crowded base camp.
“I heard my name, ‘Ryan!’ in between these trailers as I was walking. And it was you,” says Reynolds. “Just the fact that you knew my name meant so much to me. And you came over, you gave me a big hug and you said, ‘Welcome aboard. It's all going to be fine. We're going to make you comfortable.' ”
Courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios
Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming "Deadpool & Wolverine."The gesture was the beginning of what has become a profound friendship for both men, and Reynolds says what he learned working with Jackman on that first film has stuck with him ever since.
“I learned so much about what it means to lead a set when I watched you,” he says to Jackman. “What it means to be gracious to not just the people that can change your destiny, but everybody. I watched you know every member of the crew's names, have a working dialogue with every single part of that crew and those people. Everyone around you felt so seen.”
Reynolds continues: “And, honestly, it left the biggest impression on me. I thought, man, if I'm ever even remotely lucky enough to be in Hugh Jackman's position in life, these are the lessons you want to get into your DNA as soon as humanly possible.”
Fast-forward, and it was Wolverine walking onto his close friend’s set for Deadpool & Wolverine, having signed on to Reynolds’ vision to bring their X-Men rivals together one more time for the franchise’s latest raucous film.
“I remember the first day of this [movie] and you came, and you did the same thing,” says Jackman, harkening back to their first meeting. “You came over and you went, "Steve!"
Reynolds laughs: “'Greg? No, don’t tell me.'”
Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters July 26.
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