Ryan Reynolds Reveals He Suffered A Breakdown After Deadpool

Ryan Reynolds has opened up about how Deadpool altered his mental health.

Speaking to GQ, the 40-year-old actor revealed that he was diagnosed with anxiety after filming wrapped on the comic book adaption last year.

Following years of studio setbacks and arsehole bosses, Reynolds described what it felt like to finally reap the rewards. "When the Thursday midnight numbers were so excessive that I just went, 'whoa'. We made our production budget back on Friday," he said.

Image: 20th Century Fox

"I felt like I was on some schooner in the middle of a white squall the whole time. It just never stopped. 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'."

Image: PA

Reynolds, who is married to Blake Lively, now processes his anxiety through understanding that it is actually quite natural to experience such a condition.

"I never wanted to reveal too much. Even now I'm a little nervous, because you're having a conversation with somebody, and you could say something that either (a) just exposes your utter explosive ignorance about any given subject or (b) could be misinterpreted. I used to just shut down, like, 'Okay, only crack jokes and cover the subject at hand in a very kind of cursory way'. But I've embraced the fact that I'm smart. I've embraced the fact that I'm an idiot. I've embraced the fact that I'm funny. If this were five, four, three years ago even, I wouldn't have been like, 'Come on in to my home, meet the baby'. It's all human life. Take it or leave it."

He continued: "My baseline's pretty good, I think, aside from a few pretty intense anxiety hiccoughs over my life. I wouldn't say I'm quantifiably happier now than I was when I lived in my shithole studio apartment on Wilcox in Hollywood. 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."

If you are having similar feelings, it's always good to talk.

Explore more here and don't suffer in silence. Reach out. It's the brave thing to do.

MIND: 0300 123 3393.

Samaritans: 116 123.

CALM: Outside London 0808 802 5858, inside London 0800 58 58 58.

Mental Health Foundation.

Featured image credit: PA

Topics: Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds

Josh Teal

Josh Teal is a journalist at LADbible. He has contributed to the 'Knowing Me, Knowing EU' and 'UOKM8?' campaigns interviewing everyone from student drug dealers to climate change activists.

@tealioni