'Adam Project' 's Ryan Reynolds Is Still a 'Ball of Nerves' Like His 12-Year-Old Self: 'I Hide It Well'

According to Ryan Reynolds, not much has changed for him in 30 years.

The actor plays a futuristic time-traveling pilot in Netflix's new film The Adam Project, one who crash-lands in 2022 and interacts with his 12-year-old self, ultimately teaming up to save the future and his (their?) wife, Zoe Saldana.

Reynolds tells PEOPLE his actual preteen self was "not unlike the 45-year-old me: just a ball of nerves." He explains, "I hide it well when I perform and when I walk out on talk shows, fancy events and stuff, but no, on the inside I'm in a silent shriek."

What would the father-of-three movie star say to his younger self if he could? "All kinds of terrible things are going to happen. All kinds of great things are going to happen. It's all the weird, wacky, funky recipe that makes up life," he says. "So, you know, keep on keepin' on, kid. Just keep your chin up. You'll be fine."

Director Shawn Levy, who also worked with Reynolds on last year's Free Guy, adds that he would want himself to know that his Hollywood dreams are valid and "worth" believing in — "It's actually as fun in life as you are imagining sitting in your bedroom in Montreal in the mid '80s. It's worth it. Just keep doing the work."

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Newcomer Walker Scobell, 13, stands in as Reynolds' younger self in The Adam Project, marking the actor's first-ever movie role.

"It was a lot different than I thought it was going to be," Scobell says of movie-making. "There's a lot more people than I thought. I thought just, like, a director and actors and then a lighting person, but.... Then Shawn told me that there was normally more. That's really weird."

In the role of Reynolds and Scobell's parents are Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo — a 13 Going on 30 reunion 18 years after the pair costarred in the iconic romantic comedy.

"It was my wife who suggested Jen Garner to play the mom," says Levy. "I shared the idea with [Reynolds] and he loved it. He then, after the fact, pointed out to me that this was the 13 Going on 30 reunion. So even though it looks like the smartest marketing move ever, it was strangely accidental, but we got all the benefit of the chemistry that exists between Mark and Jen."

Adds Reynolds of Ruffalo and Garner sharing the screen once again, "They really had a beautiful — and still do — just a sheer chemistry that you can't create, it's just there."

"To reunite them in a different kind of time-travel movie, but one that's just as sweet and warm-hearted felt really... we just felt very lucky," says Levy.

The Adam Project debuts on Netflix March 11.