Ryan Reynolds hails from Canada. He was born in British Columbia on October 23, 1976, to a food wholesaler father and a retail salesperson mother. He has three older brothers.

Reynolds first got into acting when he was 13 years old and landed the lead role in Nickelodeon’s Hillside, known as Fifteen in the United States. After the teen soap opera, he appeared in TV movies, and he landed a recurring role in The Odyssey, a fantasy series on CBC before he graduated from Secondary School in 1994.

He had an improv group called Yellow Snow. Other TV show credits included Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years (1995) and The Outer Limits (1995) as well as The X-Files (1996). Reynolds worked as a grocery store clerk at night while appearing in these shows, and he dropped out of college a few months in to move to Los Angeles at 19.

After the Hollywood move, Reynolds turned down the role of Xander in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer because he didn’t want to play teenage roles anymore. He then took on the role of Berg in the ABC sitcom Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place before he appeared in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (2009). From there Reynolds expanded working in genres with projects like Foolproof (2003), Zeroman (2004-05), The In-Laws(2003) and Blade: Trinity (2004) alongside Wesley Snipes.

He co-starred in comedy films like Waiting (2005), Just Friends (2005), Adventureland (2009), and The Change-Up (2011). Romantic comedy roles he became known for included Definitely, Maybe (2008) alongside Rachel Weisz and The Proposal (2009) with Sandra Bullock. Action films he lent his signature wit and banter included Smokin’ Aces(2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Green Lantern (2011), R.I.P.D.(2013), Self/less (2015) and Deadpool (2016) which later led to Deadpool 2 (2018) and now Deadpool and Wolverine (2024).

More recent projects include The Hitman’s Bodyguard(2017), The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (2021) and Red Notice (2021). Still, more films he starred in include Free Guy (2021) and The Adam Project (2022), on which he worked with director Shawn Levy. Voice roles for Reynolds include family films like The Croods (2013) and its 2020 sequel, Turbo (2013), and Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) in which he voiced Pikachu.

Reynolds and Allan Loeb, a screenwriter known for Rock of Ages and Here Comes the Boom founded production company DarkFire in 2011 based at 20th Century Fox TV to develop comedy series. He also created Maximum Effort in 2018 to produce films and advertisements. He bought Wrexham AFC with fellow actor Rob McElhenney, and their ownership sparked the documentary Welcome to Wrexham. Other business ventures for the actor include investments in Mint Mobile and Aviation Gin.

Reynolds was engaged to singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette for almost 3 years, but they called off their engagement. He married actress Scarlett Johansson in 2008, but they later divorced in 2011. He has been married to actress Blake Lively since 2012, and they share three daughters — James, Inez and Betty — and a son named Olin.