Ryan Reynolds has revealed his two-year-old son Olin played a huge role in getting Bill Murray to say yes to the new John Candy documentary which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Steve Martin, Catherine O’Hara, Macaulay Culkin and Dan Aykroyd are among John’s collaborators who also appeared in the new film, which tells the story of how John became a local comedian before his breakout on SCTV and later one of the most in-demand and popular comedians of the 1980s and 1990s, starring in Stripes, Splash, Spaceballs, Uncle Buck, and Cool Runnings.
Speaking at the premiere, Ryan – who is also Canadian – revealed that Bill was the hardest to pin down for the film, demanding Ryan take a “test” and tell him about the “godfather of the spit take,” which he failed. Ryan was then ghosted, and he sent a “desperate” video message at 11.30 pm one night at home, during which time his son “just enters from [like] a horror movie, it’s 11:30 at night, this kid should be out cold”.
Ryan then shared with the audience that Olin “says something indecipherable, [expletive] two-year-olds, and I said, ‘I’m sending a video to Bill, tell Bill to do the interview,’ and [Olin] looks right at the camera and he goes, ‘Do the interview, Bill’ and I said, ‘Say no to a kid like that, then we’ll know what kind of a monster you are,’ and then I just hung up”.
But Olin’s message worked, and Bill called back and said: “What can I do for JC,” and showed up for the film, and Ryan, “big time”. Ryan also shared that working on the film reminded him of the importance of experimenting, praising John for “going fearlessly, having fun and doing so without consequence or penalty”.
“We live in this really curated society in which kids — my own kids, too — they’re terrified to suffer. They’re terrified to experiment and be bad at something, really. Perfectionism is like a fucking disease,” he added. Ryan is father to four kids with wife Blake Lively: James (10), Inez (nine), Betty (six) and son, Olin.
John struggled with obesity and weighed more than 375 pounds throughout his life, and he was also known for smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, alcohol abuse, and cocaine use. His father died of a heart attack, and so John attempted to frequently diet and exercise, losing 100lbs for Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
However. he died in 1994 at the age of 43 while filming Wagons East; his cause of death was a heart attack.
John Candy: I Like Me was directed by Colin Hanks, the son of Tom Hanks, who appeared alongside John in Splash. It uses rare and never-before-seen archive footage, outtakes, private home video from the Candy family, audio commentary, and interviews provided by friends and family to tell the legacy of the comedian.
He was married to his wife Rosemary Hobor for 15 years, after they tied the knot in 1979; they welcomed two children, Christopher Michael and Jennifer Anne, who also produced the film.
