Before He Was Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds Was A Cancelled Sitcom Guy With A Warehouse Job

His First TV Job Paid $150 An Episode — And He Almost Quit Acting Because Of It

Reynolds' very first professional acting gig was playing troubled teen Billy Simpson on the Canadian series Hillside, exported to the U.S. as Fifteen. He didn't love the experience at all — he took the role mainly for the paycheck, and afterward stepped away from acting entirely to work in a warehouse instead of risking the child-star spiral.

ABC Cancelled His First Big Sitcom — And He's Never Fully Let It Go

Reynolds spent four seasons as the wisecracking Berg on Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (later just Two Guys and a Girl), a show ABC banished to the Friday night death slot before pulling the plug in 2001 after 81 episodes. Years later he was still publicly needling the network about it, tweeting that ABC "cruelly canceled" the show and tagging his old castmates for a comeback.

The Same Actor Gave Us One Of The Biggest Bombs Ever — And A Beloved Cult Comedy

Green Lantern landed with a 26% Rotten Tomatoes score and barely cleared its own budget, grossing $219 million worldwide against a reported $200 million price tag, instantly becoming shorthand for superhero-movie disaster. Compare that to Waiting..., his scrappy $3 million restaurant comedy that critics also panned on release but that quietly built a devoted cult following over the following two decades.

He Chased Deadpool For Years Before Anyone Would Say Yes

Reynolds first played the character in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a version so botched fans still bring it up out of spite. He spent years afterward pushing Fox for a real standalone movie — the studio hired writers in 2010 and shot test footage in 2012, and the project still sat in limbo for two more years before finally getting a green light.

He And His Buddy Bought A Random Welsh Soccer Team And Somehow It Worked

In 2020, Reynolds teamed up with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Rob McElhenney to buy Wrexham AFC, a fifth-tier Welsh club, for a reported $2.5 million — despite, as McElhenney put it, having no experience in football or with each other. The FX docuseries Welcome to Wrexham turned their learning curve into an Emmy-winning hit as the club climbed three straight promotions.

He Turned A Gin Brand And A Cell Carrier Into Nine-Figure Paydays

Reynolds bought into Aviation American Gin in 2018 and sold it to Diageo in 2020 in a deal worth up to $610 million. He then took a minority stake in scrappy carrier Mint Mobile in 2019, and when T-Mobile acquired it for $1.35 billion in 2023, his reported 25% stake turned into a payday north of $300 million.

He's Also A Cartoon Caveman Named Guy, In Case You Forgot

Reynolds has voiced Guy, the inventive caveboy love interest opposite Emma Stone's Eep, in both The Croods (2013) and its 2020 sequel, The Croods: A New Age. It's a rare Reynolds role where the audience never actually sees his face.

He Married His Green Lantern Co-Star — Years After That Movie Bombed

Green Lantern is where Reynolds first shared the screen with Blake Lively, who played his love interest Carol Ferris — the on-screen chemistry didn't turn romantic until the following year, and the two married in 2012. So the film that tanked his superhero career also happened to introduce him to his actual, real-life leading lady.