Dallas County Living Well Magazine May/June 2020 | Page 12

MAY/JUNE 2020
SPOTLIGHT
It’s this strange reality that compelled him to utilize his
considerable celebrity and resources to make a real
impact. And, because “I think we can all agree, Covid-19
is an a-hole,” he said. So, interspersed among his hilar-
ious Instagram posts carrying on a ‘rivalry’ with fellow
actor Hugh Jackman and the
ones trolling his glamorous
wife, he’s used Instagram
to announce the couple’s
$400,000 pledge to New York
City hospitals and a $1 million
donation to food bank charities
in the United States and Can-
ada, while urging his sizable
audience to also donate.
The owner of Aviation Gin,
Reynolds additionally used
the platform to announce that
30% of all sales would go to
the Canadian Professional
Bartender’s Association “Tip
Your Bartenders” program
through May 1. Aiming to help
bartenders who’ve been laid
off during the pandemic, his
company donated $10,000
to get the initiative started.
“Pneumonia is very serious,” said the actor, whose father
died from pneumonia. “It can take out the toughest of us.
It certainly got my dad. So coronavirus is a serious thing.”
On the subject of Reynolds’ dad, it was a relationship that
he’s openly shared with multiple media outlets as being
extremely complicated. Born in 1976 in Vancouver, Cana-
da, the youngest of four brothers, Reynolds was raised in
a volatile environment. He told Cara Buckley of the New
York Times that to head off screaming matches or tumult,
he would try to fix anything that might set his former
police officer-turned-food wholesaler father off, be it by
keeping the house immaculately
clean or mowing the lawn.
“This is not meant to be some
sob story––everyone carries
their own bag of rocks around
and I am no different in that
regard––but growing up in
my house, it was never relax-
ing or easy and I know that,
throughout my life, I’ve dealt
with anxiety in different ways,”
explained the actor to the
Independent’s Sabrina Barr.
Acting provided an outlet for
Reynold’s talent for playing a
character and diffusing tough
situations. At 13, he landed
his first part and instantly felt
an affinity for stepping into
someone else’s shoes. “I al-
most knew right then,” he
described to Megan Con-
ner at the Guardian. “It
played to my strong point.
They gave me a role.”
Meanwhile, holed up at home
alongside Lively, the pair’s three
20th Century Fox
daughters, and his mother-in-
Reynolds stars in Deadpool (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018), and
law, he’s adjusted to quarantine
Deadpool 3 (sometime in the future) as a superhero based
with his signature wry humor.
Reynolds eventually ended
on the Marvel Comics character of the same name.
“Men tend to be the architect of
up in Hollywood in a sitcom
someone’s demise,” Reynolds
before appearing in an
explained during an appearance on The Late Show with
assortment of films including National Lampoon’s Van
Stephen Colbert at Home in April. “So it’s fine. I like just
Wilder, Blade: Trinity, The Proposal, and Buried.
being here with the girls. I like doing the girl stuff. This
morning I made dresses out of tissue paper for them.”
It was his much mocked first outing as a super-
hero, in the film Green Lantern, that offered
“We’re lucky enough to have a little, tiny garden, so we’re Reynolds the opportunity to meet his future wife
learning a little bit about gardening. We’re trying to make Blake Lively. At the time, Reynolds was mar-
this an education experience, but I’m mostly drinking,”
ried to actress Scarlett Johansson and Lively was
Reynolds also divulged to Colbert before getting serious.
dating her Gossip Girl costar Penn Badgley. It
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DALLAS COUNTY Living Well Magazine | MAY/JUNE 2020
Continued from page 8
“We live in really weird––really weird––times right now,
he told Digital Spy and other media outlets. “You’re
like watching the news and they’re like, ‘The top story
today is the end of the world…Now to find out what’s
really happening between Kylie Jenner and Tyga.’”