Deadpool & Wolverine Stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman Tease "Surprisingly Emotional," "Hilarious" MCU Movie
"It is an MCU movie — so it is filled with action, adventure, and big themes — but it is very faithful to the Deadpool tone, which is audacious, irreverent, and always surprising."
"Emotional," "hilarious," and "mismatched" are just three adjectives that trio Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and Shawn Levy used to describe Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine. After directing movies led by both actors — Jackman in Real Steel and Reynolds in Free Guy and The Adam Project — Levy is reuniting Reynolds' Merc with a Mouth and Jackman's former X-Man for the first time since the Fox-made X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009.
"It's more surprising, but emotional," Reynolds said when asked to characterize the third Deadpool movie in one word during Disney's fan event in Shanghai, China. "Ultimately, the movie is very emotional." Levy offered "mismatched" in reference to the dysfunctional duo, with Jackman opting for "hilarious."
Jackman added that his experience playing this older, yellow-suited Logan variant — who "let down his entire world," according to Matthew Macfadyen's Time Variance Authority Agent Paradox — was "one of the greatest of my career, and I've been playing Wolverine for 25 years."
"There's a reason it's been six years since the last Deadpool film for me. And that is specifically because in order to make one of these movies properly, it just swallows my whole life," said Reynolds, who also serves as producer and co-writer. "I do nothing but that for at least two years. But to come back and bring these two characters together [is] something people have been asking for as long as I can remember, but something that I've wanted for as long as I can remember, and Hugh has wanted, and Shawn."
The mouth and mind behind Deadpool attributed that sentiment to his friendship with Levy and Jackman, who came out of superhero retirement seven years after 2017's ultra-dark and emotional Logan to make the movie that Reynolds has wanted to make since 2016.
"These are my closest friends," Reynolds shared. "So to make a movie together, and to have the experience be something that is easily the best experience of my entire life and incredibly profound... but then for the film to exceed that experience, and be even more special and more emotional than anything that I've ever been a part of and funnier because it's so emotional, it allows so much of that funny to come out in interesting ways."
For Levy, that meant blending Deadpool's tone — subversive, edgy, but with humor that can be as sincerely heartfelt as it is raunchy — with what audiences expect from the MCU.
"I thought that making my first Marvel movie would be scary, or challenging in new ways, and it was a big task," Levy said. "Because you're telling a big story of anti-heroes who are also heroes. But I have to say: Marvel let us write the script we wanted to write and make the movie we wanted to make. It is an MCU movie — so it is filled with action, adventure, and big themes — but it is very faithful to the Deadpool tone, which is audacious, irreverent, and always surprising."
Reynolds and Jackman star alongside returning Deadpool cast members Morena Baccarin, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Rob Delaney, Brianna Hildebrand, Shioli Kutsuna, and Stefan Kapičić, with Succession star Matthew Macfadyen joining the MCU as TVA Agent Paradox and The Crown's Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova. Marvel Studios' R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine opens only in theaters July 26th.
