Pure Movies

Ryan Reynolds has come a long way from Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place. Unlike the many young actors who start in television comedies and go on to make teen movie after teen movie, Reynolds took a different route. As well as those so-called teen movies (in this case Van Wilder and Just Friends), he has also appeared in Blade: Trinity, The Amityville Horror and, now, Smokin’ Aces where he plays FBI agent Richard Messner…

When you watch Smokin’ Aces it is non-stop action. Did that come across in the script when you first read it?

Ryan Reynolds: Yes, it did. It really felt like an animal to me. What I loved about the script when I first read it was it was different. Joe Carnahan paid a lot of attention to the character. Every character was distinct and had a personality and for a writer to get into the minds of so many characters was impressive to me.

And what about your character, Richard Messner, an FBI agent who we see go through a lot of different emotions during the course of the film?

RR: He has a lot of humanity. He is like the moral centre of the film.

What was it like going head-to-head in intense scenes with two great actors, Ray Liotta and Andy Garcia? It might scare some young actors.

RR: Yeah, you always have a moment of that, but you get over it. Ray was easy because we established a dynamic early on. I’ve learned you can’t force a dynamic. When you try to force it, that’s when people say ‘They had no chemistry.’ I just loved working with Ray. He’s the meanest man you’ll ever love [Laughs]. Andy brings such a weight to everything he does because he’s such a fine actor. We tried to rehearse one key scene, I won’t give it away, but it was awful. We decided we just needed to do it. You just have to unleash a couple of dogs and let them go out and fight and that’s what we did.

How about the director Joe Carnahan?

RR: Joe is so unorthodox in the way he works. Some days he would say ‘I don’t feel like doing the script today. Here’s your objective, throw in a bit of this and do that.’ It’s exciting, but terrifying at the same time.

And how were you with handling a gun? You looked like you knew what you were doing.

RR: Well, being Canadian, we are born allergic to guns, so I had to get pretty good. I spent two months with a gentleman who works with the British Special Forces. The back story for my character is he was also a weapons expert, so I had to get to a skill level where I more or less had to perform magic tricks with the gun. We were shooting blanks obviously, but Joe would have dummy rounds put in my gun that would jam. So, he wanted to see me clear my gun and never miss a beat. That is what an FBI agent would have to do if he was in a real life situation. You would have to clear it and keep going, but it adds a depth and reality to the scene. I had to operate the gun when my heart rate was at 145 beats a minute and be smooth and calm with my hands. That’s the talent the experts have.

The film is intense and there are some serious scenes, but what was it like on set when the cameras weren’t rolling? I could imagine there would have been some fun with guys like Jeremy Piven and Ben Affleck on set.

RR: Oh yeah. It was such an eclectic cast with big personalities. They were insane. Every day was an adventure. You never knew what you were getting when you walked on set each day. What was interesting, which I had never experienced before with an ensemble this big, was other actors would turn up on set to watch scenes even when they weren’t shooting that day. I did too. I showed up to see some of Common’s scenes and checked out Jeremy. It felt like a real motley family.

Were you able to relax up at Lake Tahoe when you weren’t working?

RR: For the most part it was a lot of work, but with a movie like this with such a big cast you do get some time off because there’s other storylines going. I explored the mountains and did a little gambling.

Did you win?

RR: I broke even. I played a little blackjack with Ben Affleck.

Q: Ben, he’s pretty good at it isn’t he?

RR: He is an expert. That guy knows his cards. He got me out of a hole. I just hung with him. He came along and sat down and I said, ‘You just tell me what to play’ and he helped me out of the hole.

Q: There are so many great roles in Smokin’ Aces, did you only have your eye on the lead role of Agent Messner, or were you interested in playing one of the other characters?

RR: When I first met Joe I said ‘I’ll play anything.’ Messner was the last person I thought he’d want me to play. I would have been happy to knock my teeth out and play one of those crazy Tremor brothers. Joe mulled it over and said ‘I really see you as Messner.’ I knew Ray Liotta was going to be in the film so I thought he would take the Messner role, but Joe wanted Ray to play the Carruthers role.

You said you did the weapons training, but did you go and meet with FBI agents as well to add some depth to your character?

RR: Yeah, I did. I spent a couple of weeks with some FBI guys and hung with them. I read all of their handbooks and what was interesting was that everything we did in the film violated the FBI’s top 10 protocols. That really helped me with my character because it reinforced the dilemma he faces in the film. What is the right or wrong thing for an FBI agent to do? Blind bureaucracy over human life? It was exciting for me because roles like this don’t come often.

There are some pretty violent scenes in the film. Were you were OK with it?

RR: Look, the movie is about seven hitmen on their way to kill Jeremy Piven.  I had a good idea going in there was going to blood shed. But, I think if the movie was just violent without strong characters, I’d definitely take a position against it. But, the characters are so well thought out and it’s so exciting and entertaining, it’s what you’re expecting. You’re expecting gunfights.

The bullets aren’t real, but what was it like acting in gunfights like some of the scenes you were in?

RR: The blanks can still be dangerous. You are shooting fully loaded blanks. My gun was one of the smallest on the set - it was a HK .45. It’s a heavy handgun. It shattered windows.

What do you mean? The sound of the blanks could shatter windows?

RR: Yeah, it’s enormous. We had to wear ear plugs. At the end of a day my nervous system would just be taxed because of the sound of the guns. You need to go home and lie down and close your eyes before you go to sleep. It could have been worse. There was a large machine gun that Taraji Henson had to fire that was just enormous. I was two blocks away in my hotel room in Lake Tahoe and I could hear it being fired. When she shot it the muzzle flare was so big it lit curtains on fire. It almost burnt the hotel down.

What’s next for you?

RR: I have three movies coming out. A movie at Sundance called The Nines that John August wrote and directed. He did Go and Big Fish. I also just finished a movie called Definitely, Maybe and another film, a comedy, called Chaos Theory. So 2007 will be an exciting year.