Music: {allcanada} Ryan Reynolds works past Hollywood woes at Cannes

Saturday, May 17, 2014

{allcanada} Ryan Reynolds works past Hollywood woes at Cannes

NCIS / The Crazy Ones / Get Paid To Work From Home

CANNES, France — Ryan Reynolds has seen his share of big studio Hollywood flops in recent years. Well-documented misfortunes include 2013's R.I.P.D. and 2011's Green Lantern. He even voice-starred in the box office clunker Turbo. Reynolds admits he's gotten to know the pain well.

"When you are working on a large film that is not going as you hoped it would, or anyone hoped it would, it's a pretty difficult scenario to be around," he said at a Cannes Film Festival press conference Friday. "It can be rough, not only on the actors, but everyone involved, right to the catering."

The low-budget The Captive came "at the perfect" time, says Reynolds. The film, directed by fellow Canadian Atom Egoyan, premiered at Cannes on Friday. Reviews were mixed to ravaging, and the initial Cannes screening brought out some boo-birds from the expressive French crowd.

But the filmmakers reached a U.S. distribution deal, which will have the film coming to the U.S. in the fall. Meanwhile, Reynolds is clearly happy with the opportunity to step back from the Hollywood treadmill and work on lower-budget passion projects.

Although he declined to talk about his movie past (a question about Green Lantern was ignored), the tanned and smiling Reynolds was quick to draw laughs at both The Captive press event and The Weinstein Company movie slate unveiling late Friday. Reynolds bantered onstage with Harvey Weinstein about their upcoming production, Woman in Gold with Helen Mirren.

Reynolds and actress wife Blake Lively have become the golden couple of Cannes 2014. Reynolds pointed out that one of the hardest parts of following his heart on his film projects was pulling his new wife off their African honeymoon to shoot The Captive in minus-40-degree Canadian weather, bunked up in a humble motel.

The glamorous Lively "coped with it much better than I did," said Reynolds.

The Captive was a personal project. He plays an underachieving parent whose daughter is kidnapped from his car while he orders a take-away pie from a restaurant. The trauma breaks up his marriage with his wife (Mireille Enos) and the police consider him a suspect.

Given that two of his three older brothers are police officers and one works in victim services, he says, the script hit close to home. "I had never seen a story examine this (crime) in this way," said Reynolds.

The film also gave Reynolds the opportunity to work with one of the most respected directors in the business, Cannes favorite Egoyan.

"I have done this for 23 years now. And it took me a long time to realize (film-making) is a director's medium in every sense of the word," said Reynolds. "You want to work with great directors. That's the bottom line. It doesn't matter if you're paid or not paid."

More so, it was also escape from the Hollywood insanity of recent years.

"There was nothing in this film that relied on dragging an audience down towards the (financial) bottom line by their wallet," said Reynolds. "It was about telling the story. I felt privileged about getting the chance to be there."

The time away has even allowed him to be able to laugh about some of his crazier past experiences.

"I worked with a director years ago who said, 'Don't blink,' " said Reynolds. "I said, 'What do you mean? Can I treat myself to a blink every hour to lubricate the eyeballs?' And he said, 'It portrays vulnerability.' "

"That right there is Grade A (expletive) directing," said Reynolds. "I can say that I am a proud blinker."