Just because you’re hot that doesn’t make you impervious to damage. Ryan Reynolds, one of the hottest dudes to ever be hot, must have seen his whole filmography flash before his eyes when he was almost crushed to smithereens at CCXP over the weekend. While there to promote Free Guy, the action hero apparently excited the crowd so much that they almost literally killed him. It’s kind of insane, but he’s now broken the silence on the incident, explaining what happened.
As he sat down with Entertainment Tonight, the Deadpool actor had the following to share:
“Well, ordinance collapsed and that was a little, I think it looked worse than it was. All I was worried about were the people that were — what you could tell is that they were falling, like, ‘Oh, they’re gonna be fine,’ and it’s like, ‘Oh, but that leg is gonna go,’ so I jumped out. But it was, yeah, everyone was fine.”
Ryan continued by saying that his wife, Blake Lively, told him to “come home in one piece.” He seemed to smile before adding: “So, that was my only job.” And ya know what? He pulled it off, almost flawlessly!
How this all happened was as he was walking up to the stage to talk to the hundreds of ravenous fans, Ryan was waving at everyone when, all of the sudden, one of the barriers keeping the crowd from the walkway collapsed rapidly. Reynolds had to jump up and out of the way onto another barrier to avoid getting his legs crushed under the wooden construction. After the literal dust settled though, the actor sprang back to his feet to check on the crowd itself, making sure everyone was okay.
Phew! This could have been much, much worse. Stage collapses are no joking matter, as many entertainment workers have either been hurt or sadly killed because of shoddy craftsmanship or lack of stress testing. Most prominently, at least to my immediate recollection, is the sad death of Radiohead drum technician Scott Johnson in 2012. Only an hour before the crowd were to be let in, the entire stage collapsed and killed him, along with injuring three other roadies.
I’m just glad this was relatively minor compared to other incidents. Despite almost being maimed, Reynolds was still in high spirits at CCXP and seeing him check on the fans afterwards shows you there’s still humanity out there. He’s laughing about it on Entertainment Tonight, too, so why shouldn’t we? It almost makes me chuckle to think about getting seriously injured while promoting Free Guy though, a movie that seems to be exciting approximately nobody except Ryan Reynolds himself.
