By EMILY CHRISTIANSON Special to the Daily Press
For Ryan Reynolds, high school was tough. Acting gigs left him little time to chum around with his classmates and the Vancouver native, who admits he was small for his age, was picked on by other kids. Eventually the bullying got so bad he transferred schools.
“I really worked on invisibility,” said the actor who eventually graduated from Kitsilano High School in British Columbia. “I just wanted to get through it … for me it felt like I was in the Maze Prison in Ireland. It was a terrifying experience everyday.”
It’s no wonder the movie star would like to run into his former classmates now.
“I always wish I would, but I don’t,” he admitted during an LA press day. “I can remember everyone’s face like it was yesterday. It is such a formative time there’s just no way to shake it really.”
Seems Reynolds has a lot in common with his “Just Friends” character Chris Brander who also went from geek to chic after high school. The chubby senior is head over heels for his best friend Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart) and when he professes his love for her on graduation night, he gets the dreaded “just friends” speech. Crushed, Chris leaves town to reinvent himself. When he returns home unexpectedly 10 years later he’s a slimmed down, smooth talking, music executive from Los Angeles hoping for a shot with the girl of his dreams.
When it comes to staying out of the “friend zone” Reynolds has it all figured out.
“What ends up working is ultimately the last thing any guy wants to do, which is telling the girl exactly how you feel and wearing your heart on your sleeve …,” said the 29-year-old. “It sucks, but that’s the real way out.”
Reynolds, the youngest of four brothers, got his first acting gig as a teen on the Nickelodeon series “Hillside.” He went on to do several TV movies before his Hillside costar Chris Martin convinced him to move to Los Angeles.
“My Jeep got stolen the first hour I was there,” he told Splicedwire. “Yeah. That’s a true story. My Jeep was stolen, but then it was just rolled down a hill around the corner. They removed the doors, took the stereo and I was left with this shell that was my car. I spent four months in LA without doors on my Jeep — in the rainy season. So I was slugging my way to auditions in the freezing cold. Contrary to popular belief, LA is actually kind of cold in the winter.”
Eventually one of those auditions paid off. In 1998 he joined the cast of ABC’s “Two Guys and a Girl,” and the show enjoyed a four season run. Bigger and better projects soon followed like starring roles in National Lampoon’s “Van Wilder,” “Blade: Trinity,” and “The Amityville Horror.”
Now, Reynolds is busy shooting the crime drama “Smokin’ Aces” with Andy Garcia, Ben Affleck, Ray Liotta and other big names. “Chaos Theory,” “Ride Along,” and “Horrible Bosses” also are in the works.
One would think wedding planning would also top his to do list, but Reynolds and his fiancé, rocker Alanis Morissette, may skip that all together.
“Knowing her we will both go ‘let’s just do it tomorrow. Tomorrow is a good day. Your parents are in town. Let’s get together and wear some rings.’”
The two Nickelodeon alumni met at a taping of Two Guys and a Girl then ran into each other two years later at a party.
“We took it really slowly,” he tells Toro magazine. “It was almost old-fashioned. It was a month before we even kissed. We’ve kind of been inseparable ever since.”
The Van Wilder star and his “You Oughta Know” songstress may seem like an odd couple, but Reynolds told the magazine “She helps me with almost every aspect of my being. It’s something I’m so grateful for.”
Morissette also gushed about her beau to VH1 and admitted the song “Knees of my Bees” from her So- Called Chaos album was about Reynolds. “I think I’ll be giddy about him forever!”
“Just Friends” opens in theaters Nov. 23.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 18, 2005. Read the original PDF.