Ryan Reynolds Addresses His Acting Sabbatical: 'There Is No Absence of Busyness'

Actor Ryan Reynoldsseems pretty busy for someone taking a break!

Last year, the “Deadpool” actor announced that he was taking a sabbatical to spend more time at home with his family, but he’s been pretty busy!

Lately, he’s been promoting his new movie “The Adam Project,” which is set to hit Netflix on Friday, March 11.

The film tells the story of a 12-year-old boy named Adam, played by Walker Scobell. He’s struggling with the loss of his father (Mark Ruffalo) and getting into trouble at school, which is concerning his mother (JenniferGarner).

One night, a strange man (Ryan Reynolds) enters his house. He knows his way around the home, he has the same scar, and he’s wearing his late father’s watch. Adam quickly realizes that he’s having a conversation with his future self.

Reynolds explains to his younger self that “This world, our world, everything has already been changed” and they need to team up to “put the genie back in the bottle.”

Although fans are excited to see his new movie, fans can’t help but wonder: didn’t Reynolds say he was taking a break from acting?

When asked about his sabbatical, Reynolds replied, “I’m still on it.”

“It’s a little sabbatical,” he added. “It’s not a pause in work, it’s just that I’m not shooting any movies for a minute. I finished Spirited in early October, and I didn’t want to shoot anything again until after the summer.”

Although he’s taking a sabbatical, it doesn’t mean he’s going to be taking it easy!

“There is no absence of busyness at all — I am just home while I work,” he continued. “I’m writing Deadpool 3, working on [other businesses] Mint Mobile, Aviation Gin, MNTN, Maximum Effort, and all of the other things that occupy so much of my bandwidth right now.”

“My kids are at an age where they’re in school, and I don’t want to be away from them,” he added, referring to the three children he shares with actress Blake Lively. “I also recognize the extreme privilege it is to be able to be home with them during this time, so I’m taking advantage of it.”

Reynolds previously worked with director Shawn Levy to create Disney’s “Free Guy.” The two partnered up again to create “The Adam Project, which Reynolds called “a labor of love for myself and Shawn Levy from the jump.”

“I’m grateful that Netflix has a commitment to making movies like this, original stories based on nothing more than an idea, and we get to bring them to life,” he shared. “Especially films with this tone that — and I say this in a good way — is a little bit old-fashioned with an ’80s wish-fulfillment, meaning something amazing or even supernatural happens to a kid but he’s home by dinner, and his parents have no clue. It’s a type of old-school, warm and nostalgic filmmaking that I love.”

He added that “The Adam Project” is “the type of movie we were weaned on. Movies like E.T., Back to the Future, Stand by Me, and Goonies all appealed to kids as if they were adults. Now, in the modern age of entertainment, we tend to bifurcate those by saying that kids’ movies are really kids’ movies, and grown-up movies are grown-up movies, while we’re being blasted with a fire hose of content 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

He added that the film “has a storytelling device that doesn’t feel slow, so it’s the same pace that we watch movies these days, but it also has this high-concept, wish-fulfillment engine behind it. And, at the end of the day, it’s a very personal story, a story about something that I think every single person can relate to. That’s magic, man. That’s what I love about movies, and it’s what I’ve always loved about movies.”

Reynolds, who not only starred in the film, also produced it as well. Working with a talented cast and crew, Reynolds was able to wrap the movie sooner than expected. Not only that, but they also came in under budget.

“All the movies I’ve produced — so far it’s been four with Deadpool, Deadpool 2, Free Guy, and The Adam Project — I’m really proud of how responsibly they’re made,” Reynolds explained. “I’m such a believer that the death of creativity comes when there’s too much money and too much time. We made these movies at incredibly responsible budgets, we finished under budget and we finished not just on time, but three or four days early on both [Free Guy and The Adam Project]. It’s a real point of pride, not just for me but for Shawn as well.”

“When you work with a bit less, amazing things happen,” he continued. “When you have all the money in the world, all the time in the world, and all the spectacle to play with, you stop relying on or thinking about character.”

“When you are working with less, you are forced to think outside the box in different ways, and the movie always ends up being better for it,” he added. “You still have the spectacle, magic, and wish fulfillment, along with the really memorable emotional moments that carry you out of the theater and stay with you much longer than a set-piece would.”

“The Adam Project” is scheduled to premiere on Netflix on Friday, March 11.