Ryan Reynolds calls on the Academy to add the “Best Stunts” category
The star praised his “Deadpool & Wolverine” stunt team and called on the Oscars to recognize stunt work
Ryan Reynolds took to social media on Wednesday to apologize for his Deadpool and Wolverine stunt team, and called on the Academy Awards to add a category to “recognize the amazing work of stunt teams across the industry.”
“Stunts don’t have their own category at the Oscars and I hope one day that changes. So many films rocked this year… Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Chaplin were stunt performers and filmmakers. They told stories with their whole bodies,” Reynolds wrote in an Instagram post alongside photos of him and his stunt crew on set. “The #DeadpoolAndWolverine stunt team went above and beyond expectations. Many are friends I’ve worked with for years and I will spend the rest of my days doodling their names on my Heidi stationery and dotting all the ‘i’s with little hearts.”
The star thanked his stunt double and fight coordinator Alex Kyshkovych (who also worked on X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Dark PhoenixAnd The Predator), stunt coordinator George Cottle (whom Reynolds called a “genius”) Spider-Man: No Way Home), Hugh Jackman’s stunt double Daniel Stevens (who has long been “Wolverine”), and longtime stuntman Andy Lister, who “brought a new and crazy Wolvie gear to the Deadpool Corps.” In his post, Reynolds also thanked the rest of his crew of stunt coordinators and the core team of stunt performers.
Reynolds was producer of Dead Pool and became a recognized author on Deadpool 2as well as Deadpool and Wolverine The screenplay was written by Zeb Wells and Shawn Levy, who also directed the film. In July, the actor the New York Times how screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick brought the first film in the series to life and why he took what “little salary” he had left to finance the writers’ room on set.
“No part of me thought when Dead Pool finally got the green light that it was going to be a success. I even gave up my pay for the film just to get it back on the screen,” he said. “They wouldn’t let my co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on set, so I took what little salary I had left and paid them to be on set with me so we could be a de facto writing team.”
He added: “I was just so engrossed in every little detail and I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. I remember wanting to feel that more – not just on Dead Poolbut on everything.”
