Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds has explained why he puts so many jokes about his poorly received Green Lantern movie into his other films.
Reynolds was speaking at a press event to promote his new movie Free Guy, in which he stars as Guy, an ordinary bank teller whose life is changed forever when he discovers that he's a background character in a video game.
Once Guy is aware of the world he's really in, he decides to take steps to make himself the hero, determined to save the game before the developers can shut it down.
Related: Deadpool's Ryan Reynolds trolls Hugh Jackman again
Reynolds revealed that he is so aware of the negative reception surrounding 2011's DC movie Green Lantern – in which he played the titular hero – that he likes to take the opportunity to laugh at himself and turn the experience into something positive.
"I think it's more about just laughing at myself, not laughing at other people, necessarily, that are involved in a project," he said (via Comicbook.com). "But laughing at myself and my own contribution to that failure or however you want to characterise it. It was just something that I thought was worth examining, you know?
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"And in examining it, you take that energy that is – typically, maybe it's hurtful or maybe it's something that's dragging you down – and you end up creating a sort of mental Judo with it. You're using its energy against it and creating something positive out of it."
Related: Ryan Reynolds to star in new Netflix comedy
He added that he purposely added a joke to Deadpool about his superhero suit not being "green or animated" because "it felt good to shine a light on that for a second".
"It's just something I've always done, but the most significant thing that's ever happened in my career is laughing at myself always. Like, since the start of the work. And there's plenty there to laugh at," he said.
"Everybody has their own, you lay in bed at night and you think, 'Oh God, this thing I did was so awful or silly or ridiculous.' I think that's got this fuel for lots of stuff."
Free Guy, which also stars Killing Eve's Jodie Comer, Stranger Things actor Joe Keery and director and actor Taika Waititi, hopefully won't be getting the Green Lantern treatment in future as Reynolds described it as "the best movie I've ever done".
He revealed that the movie "speaks to a broader kind of spectrum of where we are in the world" and that it is "the most kind of pertinent to our times" film he has ever been involved in.
"I think that's one of the reasons I think it's my favourite movie," he said. "But it's also, yes, the experience certainly plays into that, but also this incredible cast."
Free Guy is currently due for theatrical release on December 11, while Deadpool 2 is out now on digital download, DVD and Blu-ray.
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Reporter & Sub-Editor, Digital Spy Susannah is a freelance writer and sub-editor, specialising in the entertainment industry. She graduated in 2014, with a BA in English and American Literature and Creative Writing, and an MA in Creative Producing. She’s been writing for Digital Spy ever since, after first getting involved through work experience, and has written hundreds of stories for the site on a range of topics, from The Sims to Doctor Who. Susannah has also written for Reveal Magazine. Her special interests are soaps (her Mastermind subject would be 2000s Coronation Street), Marvel and Star Wars. She can also quote far too many lines from Friends and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
