Ryan Reynolds reveals he had a 'nervous breakdown' after 'Deadpool'
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“Deadpool” gave Ryan Reynolds a nervous breakdown.
“I felt like I was on some schooner in the middle of a white squall the whole time [promoting the movie]. It just never stopped,” Reynolds, 40, said in GQ’s December issue. “When it finally ended, I had a little bit of a nervous breakdown. I literally had the shakes. I went to go see a doctor because I felt like I was suffering from a neurological problem or something. And every doctor I saw said, ‘You have anxiety.'”
Reynolds explained that the pressure for the movie to perform well triggered his anxiety.
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“I say this with the caveat that I completely recognize the ridiculously fortunate position that I am in,” he said. “But the attention is hard on your nervous system — that might be why I live out in the woods. And I was banging the loudest drum for ‘Deadpool.’ I wasn’t just trying to open it; I was trying to make a cultural phenomenon.”
Thankfully, he and the 2016 movie succeeded — and now the father of two (and husband to Blake Lively) is a generally happy guy.
“My baseline’s pretty good, I think, aside from a few pretty intense anxiety hiccups over my life … I’m also old enough to understand what’s an illusion and what’s real, and that it’s foolish to try to think that I can control anything from here on out,” he said.
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Still, don’t be fooled by how Zen that sounds.
“Undercut the Zen part with the same fears that everyone else has,” Reynolds said. “But I wasn’t a miserable f—k before I did this for a living, and I would hope that I would never turn into one, because I’m lucky.”
This article originally appeared in the New York Post's Page Six.