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Ryan Reynolds Comments on Taylor Swift’s Role as Godmother to His Kids With Blake Lively
For Ryan Reynolds, “Dad” will always be his favorite role.
And that is why the Deadpool actor—who shares daughters James, 9, Inez, 7, Betty, 5, and son Olin, born in 2023 with wife Blake Lively—is clear about prioritizing being present in their lives over churning out blockbuster movies.
“I have four kids, and I don’t ever want to be an absentee [dad],” he told Andrew Garfield in an interview for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” published Dec. 9. “I kind of die inside when I see their faces and they do a sports thing or something and I missed it.”
In addition to wanting to be there for his growing family during the big and small moments, Ryan was candid about the fact that the fate of Deadpool as a franchise is complicated.
“I don’t know what the future of Deadpool will be,” he continued, “but I do know that we made the movie to be a complete experience instead of a commercial for another one.”
While there’s no doubt that viewers will be crossing their fingers for a fourth addition to the Deadpool series, Ryan’s close friend and Deadpool & Wolverine costar Hugh Jackman could attest to his commitment to his family life. And the Greatest Showman star has also joined in on the family fun.
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“I’ve spent many hours with them, like in pajamas just hanging out in their house with their nine hundred children and dogs and it is just as normal as can be,” Hugh—who shares son Oscar, 23, and daughter Ava, 19, with ex Deborra-lee Furness—told Vogue in August of Ryan and Blake. “And Blake will be baking and cooking and saying, ‘Let’s make pizza,’ and then the next thing you turn around, and there she is, this incredible star. It’s…it’s astonishing to me.”
But fatherhood wasn’t always so simple for Ryan, whose own father passed away nearly 10 years ago after a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s Disease. While the IF actor’s relationship with his father, James Chester Reynolds, wasn’t perfect, he’s been able to use their experiences as learning opportunities for his own parenting style.
“I get to show up,” he told People in an interview published Aug. 15. “And even though I may have an instinct when my kid is acting out or telling me I'm the worst — my father's instinct would be to shut that kid off. My dad would retreat into the power of silence, and that is not the way to acknowledge your kid.”
Rather, Ryan is committed to leading with love during every high and low moment with his kids.
“To be able to get down on their level and just tell them that I believe them and that I'm here for them,” he continued. “That they can't go do the thing that they're asking to do — but at the same time, I'm willing to sit here and hear them out and feel whatever they're going through.”
Keep reading for more of Ryan and Blake’s thoughts on parenthood.
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This Will Make Your Head Spin
"I have seen Frozen with my daughters so, so many times and people don't know this, but if you play Frozen backwards, it's actually a shot for shot remake of The Exorcist," Reynolds joked on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2018.
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Fun Uncle
On Dec. 15, 2016, Reynolds and Lively debuted their daughters James and Inez for the first time, at the actor's Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony (a common setting for notoriously private celebrities to introduce the world to their kids). During his speech, Reynolds said to his wife, "You make everything better—absolutely everything in my life better. You've given us two of the most incredible children that I could ever hope to have. You've made me the father of my dreams when I thought I only had fun uncle potential."
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Best Thing Ever
In August 2016, before the birth of the couple's second daughter, Reynolds told E! News, "There's nothing on earth more grounding than having a baby. It's the best thing that could ever happen to someone."
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The Messy Side
"It's tough when you get pooped on and barfed on, but having a baby is wonderful," the proud mama told NW Magazine in 2016. "Even when it's tough and I'm exhausted, I think, 'I am so fortunate.'"
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A Bullet for Baby
During a visit to the Late Show with David Letterman in 2015, Reynolds gushed about his marriage and his daughter, but made sure viewers knew who was more important. "'I would take a bullet for you. I could never love anything as much as I love you.' I would say that to my wife. And the second I looked in that baby's eyes, I knew in that exact moment that if we were ever under attack, I would use my wife as a human shield to protect that baby."
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The Joys of Fatherhood
In tradition with his dark sense of humor, Reynolds shared this little parenting joke with his Twitter followers in 2016: "Being a father is the single greatest feeling on earth. Not including those wonderful years I spent without a child, of course."
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Daddy's Dirty Work
"I always do the dirty work," Reynolds said on NBC's Today show in 2016. "I'm happy to do the dirty work. So does she, but I'm always, I love getting up in the middle of the night, I'm fine with that, you know, all that stuff."
Fatherhood, he said, has been "amazing."
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Morning Duties
"I had one of those mornings, rare mornings, where my daughter just didn't want me to leave—and it was only because my wife was asleep," Reynolds said in 2016. "But it was like, you didn't want to go. You just like, it kills you."
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There's Dad!
"You know, what was really weird was, we were watching the Super Bowl and my daughter saw it and she totally recognized me. There was like 12 of me, which is just like, to her, was like 24 useless boobs," Reynolds said in 2016. "She was so not impressed. She was like, 'Eh, whatever.'"
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Becoming A Big Kid
"Damn it's hard letting your infant daughter go somewhere alone for the first time, I was a total mess dropping her off at Burning Man," Ryan joked to his Twitter followers in 2016.
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Look Who's Talking
"She's great, man. She's great," the proud papa gushed in 2015 before revealing whether the couple's then-only child James has started speaking. "We're getting a lot of sounds, nothing that sounds like discernible English at this point," he quipped, adding, "I'm mocking her a lot."
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Silly Love
"@vancityreynolds Since the day our baby was born, I've felt so strongly in my heart that you were most likely the father," Lively wrote on Instagram in 2015. "#ILoveYouSoMuchItsSilly."
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It's a Constant Surprise
"Having a baby is just living in the constant unexpected," Lively said in 2016. "You never know when you're gonna get crapped on or when you're gonna get a big smile or when that smile immediately turns into hysterics. It might be like living with a drug addict. But you have a baby and you think, 'I can't imagine ever not having a baby,' because they grow up so quickly. I'd be an 80-year-old woman with a baby if I could."
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Family Is Everything
"It's the best," Lively said in 2015. "It's the thing that binds us all—family. We have very unique jobs for a living, but we all are a part of someone's family. It's a nice thing."
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Father's Day Gift
"On Father's Day, my daughter smiled at me," Reynolds tweeted in 2015. "It was all the gift I needed as I packed a bag and left for 6 years to write a book on parenting."
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Everything's Worth It
"There have been times where I woke up, literally had no idea I had been walking for five minutes," he told E! News while promoting his movie Woman in Gold in 2015.
"But you love it. You wake up in the middle of the night, you got a big stupid smile on your face. I was telling someone else that. Anything else that woke you up every 45 minutes, you'd kill it. But when it's a baby, it's the best thing that ever happened to you."
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Proud Papa
"One of the most common things in the world is making out, having a couple of drinks, and then doing it, and then having a baby. I was perfectly sober for this one though. I gotta say," Reynolds joked in 2016.
"It's amazing. I just always marvel how common it is and yet how profound it is. And I always laugh because you know celebrities you always cringe when they talk about their kids. Like 'my child is the only one that has ever exited a womb out, ever.'"
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Daddy's Little Girl
"Well, a lot of people have done this, so you always want to temper it with a little of self-effacement. But I love it," Reynolds said in 2015 about then-only child James. "I truly worship that kid. It's terrible. She has me so far wrapped around her finger it's dumb. She says 'Dada' and I will walk through a cement wall to get to her."
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