Ryan Reynolds has his right hand cupped around Hugh Jackman’s ear, whispering to him like a pair of scheming schoolboys between interviews on the Deadpool & Wolverine press tour.
It takes the duo a moment to realise 9honey Celebrity has entered the room, then they’re all bright white smiles and warm handshakes.
Watch the video above.
South Korea’s bustling capital of Seoul is waiting just outside the walls of this hotel meeting room, but Reynolds and Jackman’s minds are 8000km away in Australia.
“If we ever do one of these movies again – if we’re ever lucky enough – we have to shoot Down Under. Right in Sydney,” Reynolds tells 9honey Celebrity.
“Deadpool Down Under, that sounds pretty good actually.”
Jackman, who initially seemed keen on the idea, cuts in, “Hang on, I just got written out of the title.”
He’s beloved in his home country, but it’s been years since the 55-year-old filmed a project in Australia. Reynolds wants to change that.
READ MORE: Why Ryan Reynolds’ daughter threatened to ‘divorce’ him
“Australia’s very special to me. He doesn’t care for it too much,” he jokes.
“But shooting there would be fantastic,” he quips, before conceding that Jackman is, in fact, “an A-plus Aussie”.
Australian fans would be delighted to see Jackman back on home soil for another Deadpool movie, but it’s all hypothetical at this point.
This one has to open with a bang first, and that’s exactly what Jackman and Reynolds are in Seoul to do.
Deadpool & Wolverine is the crossover movie Marvel fans have waited years for, and it marks the first outing for both heroes as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
There’s a lot riding on this movie, not just for the film studios, but for Reynolds and Jackman personally.
The crossover has been a long time coming for Reynolds, who spent years trying to get the first Deadpool film made, let alone two sequels.
Meanwhile, this movie is Jackman’s 10th outing as Wolverine, a character he’s been playing for more than 24 years now.
He’ll finally be able to reclaim his Guinness World Record for “longest career as a live-action Marvel character”, which was snatched off him by Patrick Stewart in 2022, who spent 21 years as Professor Charles Xavier.
Jackman first hit screens as Wolverine in X-Men way back in 2000, when he became one of the first stars to seriously bulk up for a comic book role.
READ MORE: It’s been 24 years, but Hugh Jackman’s ‘never been happier’ to be playing Wolverine
Today dramatic transformations are anticipated from actors cast as superheroes, due in no small part to the standard Jackman set two decades ago. Now aged 55, he tells 9honey Celebrity he’s starting to regret it.
“[I’m] really annoyed with myself now,” Jackman says, laughing.
It’s one thing to get into ‘superhero’ shape at 32; it’s another thing altogether at 55, a fact Jackman’s all too aware of after filming Deadpool & Wolverine, with the star admitting “it was harder” this time around.
“You know what, I actually enjoyed it. Maybe it was just my ego,” he says of his latest transformation.
He endured constant workouts, ate 6000 calories across six meals every day, and did hundreds of press-ups between takes during filming, according to Deadpool & Wolverine co-star Rob Delaney.
Some would call Jackman’s dedication admirable; Reynolds calls it “crazy”.
“It was nuts […] just the commitment and dedication,” he says, “and humiliation, being in a gym with him.”
Reynolds was in the audience when Jackman returned to Broadway in a revival of The Music Man in 2022 and says the man he saw on stage and the man who showed up to film Deadpool & Wolverine couldn’t have been more different.
“To go from that guy, who had the body of the mascot from Peanuts, or Tommy Tune […] to this larger-than-life superhero was crazy,” Reynolds says.
“It was one of the craziest transformations I’ve ever seen.”
IN PICTURES: A look back at Hugh Jackman’s life and career in photos
All those muscles aren’t just for show either; Jackman performed most of his own stunts for the film, leaning on his training as a dancer for some of the more complicated choreography.
“There’s sequences of this movie where there’s not a frame of a stunt guy. [Jackman’s] doing all the choreography, all the hitting, all the falling, all the jumping,” Reynolds explains.
“He didn’t hire a stunt double for me,” Jackman hits back with another laugh, “I wanted one but he said no!”
Reynolds is convinced his co-star made a deal with the devil to be able to do all that at 55.
“We moved his trailer and there’s a frigging pentagram on the ground,” he jokes, “I was like, ‘Yes! I knew it!'”
Despite being eight years Jackman’s junior, Reynolds had to pull back from the more intense stunt work while filming.
“I love the stunt stuff [but] I have spent so many years doing it, I am so broken,” he admits.
In 2022, Reynolds told Jimmy Fallon that he’d broken 12 bones and undergone seven surgeries as a result of all his action movie injuries, and he wasn’t looking to add to that number on the set of Deadpool & Wolverine.
“Typically I can do ‘fighty fighty’ stuff, [but] if you see me doing anything where I’m doing a triple axel quadruple flip and landing on my own eyelid, that’s a stunt guy,” he says, before switching his focus to Jackman.
“Then you watch this guy – forgive me, this A-hole – go out there and do everything!”
Jackman just laughs and shrugs, unfazed as ever. And why wouldn’t he be?
The 55-year-old Aussie really is the ultimate Hollywood triple threat; he does his own stunts, he can sing, he can dance.
And with all that “fighty fighty” and the physical demands of a blockbuster like this, it’s a wonder Reynolds and Jackman are not tired.
For Reynolds, at least, he is acutely aware of the sacrifices he is making to bring Deadpool v Wolverine to life.
“I have the best job ever, but some of the sacrifices are that I’m not home as much as I want with my family,” the actor admitted during his time in Seoul.
”That’s why I haven’t done one in six years because it swallows my entire life whole.”
It was his eldest daughter James Reynolds who threatened to “divorce” her famous father if he makes another Deadpool movie.
“My nine-year-old said, ‘you’re cut off,'” he explained. “She said she was gonna divorce me if I ever do a Deadpool movie again.”
If his family is reading this, we hope they like Australia, because Deadpool Down Under might just happen in the not-so-distant future.
After all, there’s no place like home – just ask Jackman.
Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine opens in Australia and New Zealand on July 25.
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