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through that door, and they have the same colour shirt on, they put their arms around each other, and they sing the same filthy f--k ing songs, and it’s a great thing.
Let’s go back to the beginning of your career. One of your first starring roles was ‘Fifteen’, which aired from 1990 through 1993, right? how was that experience for you? and how did that impact you at such a young age? Well, the show wasn’t great. Like, at all. But they filmed it [laughs]. I think it paid 250 buck s a week - that’s not exploitation but it’s borderline. I learned a ton, you know, I really learned that I hated it. [laughs] Not the show, even - I didn’t
like acting. That’s when I star ted to get into
improv comedy. But I did star t to learn at a pretty young age - discipline. To do this show, basically, you would do an episode a day on multiple cameras, like a soap opera. You’d star t the season with a binder – and I’m not jok ing – that was this thick and it had 18 episodes in it.
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So Ryan, we are here in Toronto for the premiere of a documentary film you produced, ‘John Candy: I like Me’. You are a proud canadian, as was john. can you talk a little bit about your upbringing in canada? Canada has always been my nor th star in many ways, just in terms of my ideals and who I am - seek ing to learn rather than win. I t’s a hard practice, but it’s something that I really try to do, you win more when you’re just trying to learn, when you unhook that. It’s a pr imal mechanism, so for God’s sake,
forgive yourself when you try to win
everything because we all do. Growing up in Vancouver and being around the people I was around dur ing a time in the ‘80s when you could get on your bike and go of f with your f r iend, you had to resolve conf licts together, you got hurt, you did all k inds of things, you got into adventures, you got scared, you did stuff that like really forged a path ahead where resilience and determination and stamina, and it’s hard to f ind that.
I have four k ids r ight now and I’m scared because I won’t let them just go, they’re not getting on a bike and going of f into the city and coming back before sundown, like that’s insane. [laughs] Anyway, the thing is, I f ind that the idea of not always trying to win led to conflict resolution for me. You talk about all these things in the wor ld r ight now, identity politics is the worst drug in the world, it really is. And there are few places where togetherness does exist.
I t exists in spor ts, it’s why I love being a par t of spor ts, it’s why I love mak ing movies, it’s why I love going to concer ts and watching people per form. Films, spor ts and all those k inds of things, they are places we can go, like temples almost, where we can have an experience that is sor t of objective, we’re not in control of it, and I love that, and I feel it. And Wrexham, the football club that I’m a co-owner of, and it owns all the ulcers in my stomach, that is where I watch people, I k now them all, I see them walk ing, and I k now that guy’s a labourer, that guy’s a Tory, and I know they’re opposing in every possible way, but they walk
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And you were required to shove that binder in the middle of the table, a big round table and everyone had to learn, by memory, all 18 episodes. I’ve worked with actor s that can’t remember a simple grunt. And I just thought. ‘Wow.’ At the time, it was so stressful for a k id. And cer tainly, talk ing to Macaulay Culk in through the course of mak ing this John Candy documentary, I think about the pressures he was under. I mean, nobody watched this show. I can’t imagine what Macaulay went through. But it did teach me discipline. And also thank fully, I sk ir ted through it without any degree of fame. I then went through high school and did improv comedy and had the best time, just doing that. And the natural graduation f rom improv comedy, of course, was work ing at Safeway, midnight to eight am, driving a fork lif t [laughs]. And then I star ted college for 45 minutes, lef t, and moved to LA.
A few years later, you landed one of the lead roles in the sitcom ‘Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place’. What was it like for you to make the professional move from canada to LA? you’ve talked before about being a Canadian in hollywood and feeling like you had to overdeliver? I think that’s a common denominator with Canadians. There’s a commitment to what’s r ight, and sometimes that can go too far, I k now for a fact that when I exper ience injustice or I exper ience somebody that I work with, or if somebody’s done something, there’s a lack of integr ity, I tend to get really upset about it. Because I feel shame around it too. I think Canadians have that, but that same mechanism is actually what really allows us to be even more
productive. So I love to underpromise and
over deliver. I love to speak to people directly - that’s been a huge advantage in my life. So when I moved to Amer ica, I moved there with absolutely no expectations. My main expectation was to not get k illed and food, at some point. I had very little money, I wanted to join The Groundlings. You couldn’t just walk in and get on the main stage at The Groundlings; you had to go to the class. So, in order to pay for the class, I met with an agency to get a job. I needed a visa. I needed a way to make money. I said, ‘Send me on just f ive auditions and I swear to God, I’ ll come back with one.’ But I did, I got a sitcom. I said, ‘As long as there’s sitcoms…’
INTERVIEW RYAN R E Y N O L D S
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