Why Ryan Reynolds Struggled At The Beginning Of Welcome To Wrexham
There's no question that the sports documentary "Welcome to Wrexham" was one of the most surprising hits of 2022, chronicling the acquisition of Wrexham A.F.C. by American actors (and soccer management novices) Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. The show was an immediate success, boosting Wrexham's popularity and status to unprecedented levels, and granting the unknown Wales club a new international fanbase overnight.
Despite the real-world success that the show has had on Wrexham, co-creator and club co-owner Ryan Reynolds recently admitted that he struggled heavily during the early stages of the docuseries — as he felt uncomfortable around all of the cameras. "I'd never done anything where I was part of a docuseries, and I really struggled at the beginning," Reynolds said during an interview with Variety. " There's a moment in the series where I'm joking that I didn't know that I had the option to not appear on camera all the time. And that was true! I really wasn't super comfortable with it."
The "Deadpool" star went on to say that it was about halfway through filming before he finally became comfortable with the cameras, at which point Reynolds finally started to "let it go" and show his real emotions to the audience.
In spite of his struggle, Ryan Reynolds was encouraged by Rob McElhenney
By contrast, Ryan Reynolds' co-star Rob McElhenney was immediately comfortable with the docuseries format and invasive cameras, and told Variety that he had to fight to get Reynolds out of his shell on more than one occasion.
"It was definitely a war of attrition with Ryan, who was very clearly uncomfortable from the very beginning," said McElhenney. "I treated that with as much respect as I could, bringing cameras to speak with everybody else." McElhenny acknowledged how the public might view this hesitation as ironic (given that so much of their lives as actors take place in front of the camera), and explained how vulnerable and uncomfortable it can be to bare your private life to an audience.
As if it wasn't stressful enough to give millions of viewers a direct window into his personal life, Reynolds admitted that he was also daunted by the show's entire premise. "We didn't know a f***ing thing when we went in there," said Reynolds, explaining that it took a while before he and the rest of the team knew that they were telling Wrexham's story the right way. Although "Welcome to Wrexham" has since achieved an international cult following, it's clear that both the show and its format posed a challenge to Ryan Reynolds when he first started filming.