EXCLUSIVERyan Reynolds opens up about father’s Parkinson's battle and how parenthood with Blake Lively 'healed' him
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Ryan Reynolds opened up about how his late father's battle with Parkinson's disease strained their relationship and how, with the support of his family, he has found healing.
The Deadpool & Wolverine star, 47, shared that his father James Chester Reynolds began experiencing symptoms of hallucinations and delusions a decade after his Parkinson's diagnosis, further complicating their already challenging dynamic.
'It really destabilized my relationship with him because I didn’t really know what was happening,' the actor told People on Wednesday. 'I could have maybe been there with him toward the end, and I wasn’t. He and I just drifted apart, and that’s something I’ll live with forever.'
However, nine years after James died at age 74, Ryan said he has found more perspective after welcoming four children of his own — James, 9, Inez, 7, Betty, 4, and Olin, 1 — with wife Blake Lively.
'The healing for me really comes more through my relationship with my own kids, while taking some of the things from my father that are of immense value,' he explained.
Ryan Reynolds opened up about how his late father's battle with Parkinson's disease strained their relationship and how, with the support of his family, he has found healing; (seen in May)
The Deadpool & Wolverine star, 47, shared that his father James Chester Reynolds began experiencing symptoms of hallucinations and delusions a decade after his Parkinson's diagnosis, further complicating their already challenging dynamic; (pictured with mom Tammy Reynolds and dad James Reynolds in 2005)
He added: 'My dad had incredible integrity. He did not lie. [Now] I get to fill in those little gaps that maybe hurt me. I get to show up.
'When my kid is acting out or telling me I’m the worst — my dad would retreat into the power of silence, and that is not the way to acknowledge your kid.'
Ryan elaborated on his father's hallucinations and delusions, admitting that he feared his dad was 'losing his mind' during that difficult period.
'My father was really slipping down a rabbit hole where he was struggling to differentiate between reality and fiction,' he continued.
'And subsequently everyone else in his life was losing the bedrock faith and trust that they had on his point of view. And just stuff that was such a wild departure from the man that I grew up with and knew.'
Ryan had previously spoken out about his strained relationship with James in his 2022 documentary Welcome To Wrexham.
He admitted even in the years since his father's death from Parkinson's Disease in 2015, the quest to please him 'doesn't really go away,' saying he still views the former cop as a 'hard-a*s.'
He said: 'The main place I got validation for my father was I was good at sports, so I played sports long past the point where I was really driven to do sports.
'It really destabilized my relationship with him because I didn’t really know what was happening,' the actor told People on Wednesday. 'I could have maybe been there with him toward the end, and I wasn’t. He and I just drifted apart, and that’s something I’ll live with forever' (pictured as a child with his dad)
Ryan elaborated on his father's hallucinations and delusions, admitting that he feared his dad was 'losing his mind' during that difficult period
'It carried on all through showbusiness, an unquenchable quest for validation. My father has been dead for years but that stuff doesn't really go away.'
The documentary tracks Ryan Reynolds and actor Rob McElhenney as they join forces to revitalize Wrexham and secure its place in the English Football League.
Ryan explained that his decision to focus on this modest Welsh club is rooted in his own 'working class' background in Canada.
Now, his life is a far cry from those early days, with Ryan and his wife Blake established as one of Hollywood's most influential power couples.
He said: 'I grew up in a working class family and I had three older brothers, my father struggled in a number of different ways.
'My dad started as a cop and then became a food broker, which sounds like a cover for a CIA agent or something but it's an actual job.
'The main place I got validation for my father was I was good at sports, so I played sports long past the point where I was really driven to do sports.
'It carried on all through showbusiness, an unquenchable quest for validation. My father has been dead for years but that stuff doesn't really go away.'
Ryan added: 'It's easier to think of him the way I'm describing him, a hard-a*s, he'd have thought all of this was wild, he didn't see all of this stuff Deadpool forward so he would have thought all of this stuff was pretty crazy.'
'The healing for me really comes more through my relationship with my own kids, while taking some of the things from my father that are of immense value,' he explained; (seen on December 15, 2016 in Los Angeles)
In 2016 Ryan offered insight into his father's final moments, telling Men's Health: 'In my dad's dying moments, we were making him laugh. We were all in there together, me and my brothers, just joking with him.
'And of course we end up busting each other's chops. I recommended that the doctor raise Dad's dose of Dilaudid in order to make my other brother more tolerable.'
In a recent interview on David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, the star admitted that he was 'mad' at his father when he passed away, because their distant relationship meant that he felt he 'never got the chance to get to know him'.
Ryan and his wife Blake, who met on the set of Green Lantern in 2010, have been together since 2011 and tied the knot in South Carolina in September 2012.
