Ryan Reynolds Opens Up About His Late Father's Hallucinations from Parkinson's: 'Wish I Knew Then' (Exclusive)

Ryan Reynolds was 22 when his father, James Chester Reynolds, a former police officer, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. But their Vancouver family rarely discussed the topic. “He said the word ‘Parkinson’s’ maybe three times as far as I knew — and one of them wasn’t to me. There was a ton of denial, a ton of hiding,” says Reynolds, whose dad died in 2015 at age 74 after living with the disease for nearly 20 years.

The two had a complicated relationship, exacerbated by what the Deadpool & Wolverine star later learned were his father’s struggles with hallucinations and delusions, two lesser-known symptoms of Parkinson’s that began roughly 10 years after James’s diagnosis. “It really destabilized my relationship with him because I didn’t really know what was happening,” says Ryan, who has partnered with the educational campaign More to Parkinson’s, which offers resources to patients and caregivers. 

Nine years after his father’s death, Ryan, 47, the youngest of four brothers, has welcomed four children of his own: James, 9, Inez, 7, Betty, 4, and Olin, 1, with his wife, Blake Lively, 36. He opens up to People in this week's issue about what he’s learned about Parkinson’s and the perspective he’s gained through fatherhood. 

Ryan's relationship with his father was challenging for several reasons.

I have to preface this with the fact that my father was a man who does not share his feelings. He was a boxer, a cop, a hard-ass. I can’t even recall ever really having a proper conversation with my father. He was a present father, never missed a football game, but he just didn’t have the capacity to feel, or at least share, the full spectrum of human emotion a bit. And pride was just so ingrained in him that it dictated almost everything that he did.

Ryan struggled more with their relationship as the effects of James’s increasing hallucinations and delusions caused a deeper divide.

At the time I just thought, “My dad’s losing his mind.” My father was really slipping down a rabbit hole where he was struggling to differentiate between reality and fiction. And subsequently everyone else in his life was losing the bedrock faith and trust that they had on his point of view. There would be conspiratorial webs that he would spin about “this is happening” and that “these people might be after me” or “this person is out to get me.” And just stuff that was such a wild departure from the man that I grew up with and knew.

Ryan says in the years following his father’s death, he reflected on their dynamic more deeply.

I’m constantly putting pieces of the story together that I wasn’t really accepting my own responsibility. It was very easy for me to dine off the idea that my father and I do not see eye to eye on anything and that an actual relationship with him is impossible. And as I’m older now, I look back at it, and I think of it more as that was my unwillingness at the time to meet him where he was. 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. 

For more about Reynolds and his relationship with his father, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday.

But there’s nuance, and there were many moments [of connection]. I sent my dad a letter about five months before he died, which I’m very grateful I did. The letter was basically a list of every amazing thing he ever did — every time he showed up or every time he had a catch with me outside after baseball practice. Every time he just was there. And if the man couldn’t express his emotions in a way that was dynamic, well, many people can’t. The guy was born in the ’40s. It’s okay. So I’m super grateful that I sent that letter. I know for a fact it meant the world to him. So I did get that closure, but I wasn’t with him when he passed away, and I do wish I was.

Ryan’s mother, Tammy, was James’s chief caregiver as he struggled with the delusions as well as the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s.

My mom, I think, lived a life of true isolation with my dad for many, many years. And when somebody is not necessarily speaking from their baseline or right mental state, they can make life really tough for the only person [there]. My mom was a backboard for my father during that time, but it really broke her. Caregiver fatigue is very real — it’s one of probably the most unreported side effects of diseases like this. I wish the resources that are available now to treat that part of Parkinson’s existed, or at least we knew about it then, because it would’ve really given a lot of hope.

Ryan found more perspective as he became a parent himself and named his oldest child James. 

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. 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. So to be able to get down on their level and just tell them that I believe them and that I’m here for them . . . I’m like, “Oh, okay. I just weirdly didn’t mean to, but I fixed something with my own dad.”

Additional information about Parkinson's disease is available at More to Parkinson’s.