Ryan Reynolds Fires Back at Haters: ‘Comedy Is Very Difficult’

Ryan Reynolds wants his critics to know that his acting is just as difficult as Andrew Garfield’s, taking to social media to “speak up in defense of comedy,” in a Friday post on X.

The Deadpool star replied to a social media user who mocked Reynolds’ pairing with Garfield for Variety’s buzzy Actors on Actors interview series. In comparison, Garfield’s recent role in We Live In Time alongside Florence Pugh is a tearjerking drama—and Deadpool is, well, Deadpool.

“Andrew Garfield talking about playing a husband and father whose wife decides to forgo cancer treatment and Ryan Reynolds talking about playing Deadpool,” the X user wrote in the now-deleted tweet, according to Variety. Reynolds hit back in his response, writing, “Comedy is also very difficult.”

He added, “But has an added dimension in that it’s meant to look and feel effortless.” According to Reynolds, audiences are “meant to SEE” that drama is difficult, “which is one of the reasons it feels visceral and effective.”

Reynolds went on to call Garfield “genius.”

“He and Florence are magic together in We Live In Time. They’re heartbreaking and charming and spend the entire film in a high-wire act of humanity and constraint,” he wrote, adding, however, “both [drama and comedy] disciplines are beautiful.”

Reynolds continued his rant in the long-ish post, writing, “Comedy and drama subsist on tension. Both thrive when subverting expectations. Both thrive backstopped by real emotion. And both are deeply subjective. Your favorite comedy might be Anchorman. Mine might be Lars Von Trier’s, Melancholia.”

Critiques over Reynolds’ pairing in the Variety series seemed to strike a nerve for the actor, who stayed mum throughout the social media firestorm that plagued his wife Blake Lively during her It Ends With Us press tour. Social media commentators speculated wildly that there was alleged drama between Lively and her co-star Justin Baldoni, also the movie’s director, with some speculating that the Hollywood couple had bullied Baldoni. Reynolds has yet to comment on the rumors.

Actors on Actors has received more attention than usual ahead of the new season’s Dec. 9 premiere, with The Apprentice actor Sebastian Stan calling out his peers for being “too afraid” to interview him because it would mean talking about President-elect Donald Trump. As a result, Stan did not participate.

“Not a single one of these celebs wanted to pair with Sebastian Stan, SMH,” pointed out a social media user when the season’s interview pairing list was released this week.