Ryan Reynolds revealed on TIFF (via Entertainment Weekly) that he personally called a journalist who once laughed at John Candy’s weight. The “Deadpool” actor saw archival footage of the insulting incident while working as a producer on Colin Hanks’ documentary “John Candy: I Like Me.”
“There were a lot left out of the documentary. The journalists are just talking about things. One of them I called,” Reynolds said of the journalist who owns a camera, making inflammatory comments about Candy’s weight. “I didn’t put it in the movie, but I just called this journalist to watch.”
“I wasn’t ashamed of him or trying to teach him lessons,” Reynolds continued. “(I told him) I took it out of the movie, but if you want to talk about it, I put it in the movie, because you have something to say about it.
Even if the journalist was removed from “John Candy: I Like Me,” Hanks’ film still includes many examples of interviewers who essentially call Candy “fat.”
“After the interview, there are horrible things being said and questions are being asked in a very insensitive way,” Hanks told Variety before the film’s TIFF premiere. “It’s hard to see how uncomfortable John is in almost every clip, and he hates some of the things people said and isn’t tolerated today.”
“John Candy: I Love Me” includes interviews with dozens of former co-stars of the late comedian, including Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Katherine O’Hara. The film created headlines from Tiff, including an interview with Candy’s Uncle Buck co-star Macaulay Culkin. He reveals that Candy rose to his feet when it revealed that Culkin’s father was “already a monster.”
“It wasn’t hard to see how difficult my father was, even before the waves were climbing and ‘only home’ was happening. That was no secret,” Culkin said. “All of a sudden, fame and money came, he became an infamous monster. He was no good guy already. I think John looked a little aside.
“John Candy: I Love Me” premieres on Amazon Prime video on October 10th.