When it comes to his kids' excitement, this time Ryan Reynolds doesn't have to imagine.
The Deadpool star's newest movie IF—which stands for "imaginary friends"—is a far cry from his usual action-heavy films, which are not always appropriate for his and Blake Lively's daughters James, 9, Inez, 7, and Betty, 4, and a fourth child born in February 2023, to watch, and is instead a movie made especially for children. It's a change, Ryan says, his daughters were waiting for.
"The only four-letter word I say in this movie is 'yes' with two s's," he joked during an interview with E! News at IF's New York premiere May 13. "My kids are psyched to see it, which is so nice. Cause you always want your kids to pay attention to what you do."
He continued, "And I think when they see movies being made, it's so agonizingly slow and boring. So when they see something condensed down to an hour and 45 minutes, it's pretty wild for them." (For more from the IF premiere, tune into E! News tonight May 14 at 11 p.m.)
And in addition to watching their dad frolic around with a multitude of imaginary friends, James, Ines, Betty and their littlest one can also see Blake onscreen, though she appears in a feline form.
"She shows up as a kitty," Ryan said of his wife's cameo, which he noted was a milestone for their family. "A huge plus for the babysitting aspect, because we both got to be on set with our kids at the same time."
And when it comes to his sweet new film, the 47-year-old knows it will be an instant family classic—partly in thanks to creator John Krasinski.
"I think John really was able to illustrate that really beautiful, kind of tenuous connection between grown ups and kids," he reflected. "Obviously you can't have one without the other, but also how interconnected they actually are. And then when you grow up, how close you still are to who you were when you were a kid."
He continued, "And we're constantly trying to change that, or fix things or move on from who you were, or who you used to be. And this movie kind of celebrates reacquainting yourself with that little kid."
But on whether his own house is rampant with imaginary friends having four kids at home, Ryan admitted he's sure there are a number of them, but that his kids keep the details under wraps.
"I know that when I was a kid I didn't tell my parents about my imaginary friends," he shared. "So maybe I'll have to eavesdrop."
And for more of Ryan and Blake's sweetest quotes on parenthood, keep reading.
- Reporting by Kathy Buccio
"I have seen Frozen with my daughters so, so many times and people don't know this, but if you play Frozen backwards, it's actually a shot for shot remake of The Exorcist," Reynolds joked on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2018.
On Dec. 15, 2016, Reynolds and Lively debuted their daughters James and Inez for the first time, at the actor's Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony (a common setting for notoriously private celebrities to introduce the world to their kids). During his speech, Reynolds said to his wife, "You make everything better—absolutely everything in my life better. You've given us two of the most incredible children that I could ever hope to have. You've made me the father of my dreams when I thought I only had fun uncle potential."
In August 2016, before the birth of the couple's second daughter, Reynolds told E! News, "There's nothing on earth more grounding than having a baby. It's the best thing that could ever happen to someone."
"It's tough when you get pooped on and barfed on, but having a baby is wonderful," the proud mama told NW Magazine in 2016. "Even when it's tough and I'm exhausted, I think, 'I am so fortunate.'"
During a visit to the Late Show with David Letterman in 2015, Reynolds gushed about his marriage and his daughter, but made sure viewers knew who was more important. "'I would take a bullet for you. I could never love anything as much as I love you.' I would say that to my wife. And the second I looked in that baby's eyes, I knew in that exact moment that if we were ever under attack, I would use my wife as a human shield to protect that baby."
In tradition with his dark sense of humor, Reynolds shared this little parenting joke with his Twitter followers in 2016: "Being a father is the single greatest feeling on earth. Not including those wonderful years I spent without a child, of course."
"I always do the dirty work," Reynolds said on NBC's Today show in 2016. "I'm happy to do the dirty work. So does she, but I'm always, I love getting up in the middle of the night, I'm fine with that, you know, all that stuff."
Fatherhood, he said, has been "amazing."
"I had one of those mornings, rare mornings, where my daughter just didn't want me to leave—and it was only because my wife was asleep," Reynolds said in 2016. "But it was like, you didn't want to go. You just like, it kills you."
"You know, what was really weird was, we were watching the Super Bowl and my daughter saw it and she totally recognized me. There was like 12 of me, which is just like, to her, was like 24 useless boobs," Reynolds said in 2016. "She was so not impressed. She was like, 'Eh, whatever.'"
"Damn it's hard letting your infant daughter go somewhere alone for the first time, I was a total mess dropping her off at Burning Man," Ryan joked to his Twitter followers in 2016.
"She's great, man. She's great," the proud papa gushed in 2015 before revealing whether the couple's then-only child James has started speaking. "We're getting a lot of sounds, nothing that sounds like discernible English at this point," he quipped, adding, "I'm mocking her a lot."
"@vancityreynolds Since the day our baby was born, I've felt so strongly in my heart that you were most likely the father," Lively wrote on Instagram in 2015. "#ILoveYouSoMuchItsSilly."
"Having a baby is just living in the constant unexpected," Lively said in 2016. "You never know when you're gonna get crapped on or when you're gonna get a big smile or when that smile immediately turns into hysterics. It might be like living with a drug addict. But you have a baby and you think, 'I can't imagine ever not having a baby,' because they grow up so quickly. I'd be an 80-year-old woman with a baby if I could."
"It's the best," Lively said in 2015. "It's the thing that binds us all—family. We have very unique jobs for a living, but we all are a part of someone's family. It's a nice thing."
"On Father's Day, my daughter smiled at me," Reynolds tweeted in 2015. "It was all the gift I needed as I packed a bag and left for 6 years to write a book on parenting."
"There have been times where I woke up, literally had no idea I had been walking for five minutes," he told E! News while promoting his movie Woman in Gold in 2015.
"But you love it. You wake up in the middle of the night, you got a big stupid smile on your face. I was telling someone else that. Anything else that woke you up every 45 minutes, you'd kill it. But when it's a baby, it's the best thing that ever happened to you."
"One of the most common things in the world is making out, having a couple of drinks, and then doing it, and then having a baby. I was perfectly sober for this one though. I gotta say," Reynolds joked in 2016.
"It's amazing. I just always marvel how common it is and yet how profound it is. And I always laugh because you know celebrities you always cringe when they talk about their kids. Like 'my child is the only one that has ever exited a womb out, ever.'"
"Well, a lot of people have done this, so you always want to temper it with a little of self-effacement. But I love it," Reynolds said in 2015 about then-only child James. "I truly worship that kid. It's terrible. She has me so far wrapped around her finger it's dumb. She says 'Dada' and I will walk through a cement wall to get to her."