by Ryan Reynolds has established himself as one of Hollywood’s most bankable leading men over the past decade. While known for his comedic roles in films like Deadpool and The Proposal, Reynolds has also shown a remarkable ability to transform himself into profoundly moving dramatic characters. Some of his most emotionally resonant performances include Buried, The Voices, and Self/less. Through these roles, Reynolds has proven himself a master at eliciting deep emotions from audiences. However, he does this in a way that seems effortless and natural.
Behind the scenes, Reynolds has developed a set of techniques and approaches that allow him to consistently deliver performances that cut right to viewers’ hearts. Though he doesn’t openly discuss these methods, after observing Reynolds’s body of work closely, several of his “secret rules” for emotional storytelling have become apparent. In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at five principles Reynolds employs to create some of the most impactful dramatic scenes in modern cinema.
Rule #1: Build authentic emotional connections with your scene partners.
One of the keys to Reynolds’s ability to move audiences is his skill at forming genuine human connections with his co-stars. Rather than simply reciting lines of dialogue, Reynolds works to understand his characters on a deeper level and develop real chemistry with those he shares the screen with. This allows raw emotions to flow naturally between actors during intense scenes.
For Buried, Reynolds’s entire performance was dependent on his ability to convey fear, panic, and desperation through only his voice as his character was trapped in a coffin. To pull this off authentically, Reynolds had in-depth phone conversations with director Rodrigo Cortés to get into the mindset of his character Paul Conroy. He also worked closely with Spanish actor José Luis García Pérez, who played the voice on the other end of Paul’s phone line, to establish an empathetic bond. Their real concern for each other’s wellbeing came through powerfully.
In The Voices, Reynolds formed a close working relationship with co-star Gemma Arterton, who played his love interest Lisa. Reynolds said developing Lisa and Jerry’s romance was crucial “because if you don’t believe in that, you don’t believe in anything in the movie.” He and Arterton spent hours having personal conversations to understand each other and build real chemistry before filming their most emotional scenes together. The raw emotion they conveyed sold the movie’s tragic ending.
Rule #2: Fully commit your mind and body to your character’s circumstances.
To achieve truly moving performances, Reynolds believes actors must lose themselves in their characters and fully commit both mentally and physically to the circumstances of the story. On screen, audiences need to believe Reynolds has become his character, experiencing every emotion as that individual would in that specific situation.
For Self/less, Reynolds portrayed a man undergoing a life-extension medical procedure that transfers his consciousness into a new healthy body. To get into character, Reynolds spent hours each day practicing the physical limitations and pains of an elderly man. He contorted his body in ways to understand how an aging figure would move. Reynolds also studied videos of patients with dementia to grasp the mental deterioration of old age. His complete physical and mental transformation was haunting.
In The Captive, Reynolds played a man whose daughter has been missing for eight years. To understand the unrelenting emotional turmoil of this, Reynolds isolated himself in his trailer between scenes and replayed an audio recording of his daughter saying “Daddy help me.” He pushed himself to the breaking point emotionally to achieve raw, unfiltered reactions for the film’s most intense moments. Audiences felt they were watching a real father consumed by grief and desperation.
Rule #3: Be open to vulnerability and don’t be afraid to go to uncomfortable places emotionally.
For Reynolds, avoiding vulnerability or discomfort is the quickest way to produce inauthentic performances. He believes great drama comes from being willing to take emotional risks and go to places as an actor that make you feel raw and exposed. This vulnerability is what resonates most powerfully with audiences.
In Buried, Reynolds spent the majority of the film alone in a coffin in the dark, conveying his character’s escalating fear and panic through voice alone. It was an intensely vulnerable and claustrophobic experience. Reynolds said it was important that he “felt as trapped, alone and desperate as the character.” He put himself in a psychological place he found truly unsettling to achieve a level of emotional honesty rarely seen.
For The Voices, Reynolds portrayed a likable man descending into disturbing madness and murderous delusions. To understand his character’s losing grip on reality, Reynolds stopped sleeping and spent days in a near-delirious state. He pushed himself to the point of exhaustion and disorientation, which he felt unlocked deeper layers of his character’s psyche on screen. Reynolds was not afraid to go to dark, uncomfortable places internally to deliver the film’s chilling emotional climax.
Rule #4: Bring your own life experiences into emotionally transformative roles.
While losing himself in a character, Reynolds also believes drawing from his own experiences can elevate emotionally demanding roles. He looks for parallels between his characters’ journeys and aspects of his personal life to unlock deeper wells of authentic feeling. Reynolds’s ability to fuse his characters’ circumstances with emotions from his own life is what makes his dramatic work so viscerally moving.
For Self/less, Reynolds’s character grapples with regret over his past decisions and a desire to start anew. Reynolds was able to relate through his own experiences of reflecting on life choices and wanting personal growth. He channeled feelings of introspection from his real life into his character’s emotional arc over the course of the film.
In The Captive, Reynolds drew from the deep love and attachment he feels for his own daughter to understand the consuming grief and desperation at the heart of his character. He fused his real-life paternal emotions with the story’s circumstances to achieve raw, gut-wrenching reactions that came from a very real place. Audiences connected with the performance on a profoundly human level.
Rule #5: Find the humanity in even the most flawed or unlikable characters.
Reynolds believes great drama comes from portraying fully realized human beings, no matter how unsavory their actions. He strives to uncover redeeming qualities and find empathy for even the most morally questionable characters. Reynolds’s ability to make audiences understand and relate to deeply flawed protagonists is what elevates his emotionally complex roles.
In Buried, Reynolds’s character Paul Conroy makes rash, panicked decisions that endanger his life. But Reynolds ensured audiences still sympathized with Paul’s plight through the humanity and vulnerability he conveyed. We empathized with Paul’s fear rather than judged his poor choices.
In The Captive, Reynolds’s character is an unstable, obsessive man whose actions become increasingly disturbing. But Reynolds imbued his performance with such raw emotion and desperation that we remained invested in understanding this flawed character’s psyche and rooting for his redemption, up until the film’s heartbreaking conclusion.
Even in the black comedy Deadpool, Reynolds found nuanced humanity in a character known for crass humor and violence. He played the Merc with a Mouth as a deeply lonely, romantic figure beneath the bravado and mayhem—a characterization that resonated with audiences on an emotional level.
Through these roles, Reynolds has proven himself a master at finding profound humanity in even the most morally ambiguous or unlikable protagonists. This ability is what allows him to make audiences emotionally invest in complex dramatic stories that might otherwise be off-putting. We relate to the flawed characters not in spite of their actions, but because of the vulnerability and emotional truth Reynolds brings to them.
In summary, Ryan Reynolds has developed a unique set of techniques through experience to consistently deliver emotionally resonant performances. His secret rules center around forming authentic connections, fully committing mind and body to circumstances, embracing vulnerability, drawing from personal experiences, and finding humanity in even unlikable characters. By following these principles, Reynolds is able to fuse raw emotion with complex dramatic storytelling in a way that deeply resonates with audiences. His ability to elicit profound feelings through his acting will surely continue to make him one of today’s most impactful leading men in both comedy and drama for years to come.
