Deadpool 2: Ryan Reynolds secretly played another character in the film

'We committed to it pretty early on, because he’s never been done justice until now'

*WARNING: SPOILERS FOR DEADPOOL 2*

The Merc with a Mouth had a few surprises up his sleeve for his follow-up cinematic outing: a surprise villain in the form of Juggernaut, who we’d previously seen depicted by Vinnie Jones in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, but here took on a far more imposing CGI form.

However, anyone curious as to the voice behind the visage will have been disappointed once the credits rolled, with Juggernaut being credited only “as himself”.

Until now, as writer Rhett Reese revealed to CBR: “Ryan Reynolds ended up voicing Juggernaut, if you didn’t know that. That was Ryan’s voice as the Juggernaut, and he did the facial capture for him. I don’t know how they did the physical mo-cap — I don’t think that was Ryan.”

He also added that he was keen, alongside co-writer Paul Wernick, to revisit the classic X-Men villain after 2006’s depiction left fans disappointed.

“We committed to it pretty early on, because he’s never been done justice until now,” Reese said. “We always wanted to see a CG Juggernaut, so we finally got that. We also really needed to balance the scales in act three, between Deadpool and friends and little Firefist who has cool powers, but we needed to make it a fair fight. What greater force of nature than Juggernaut?”

However, Reynolds’ cameo in his own film is likely slightly overshadowed by the surprise A-list presence of Brad Pitt, who swoops in for a cameo of only a second, as X-Force member The Vanisher.

Director David Leitch explained that the cameo came about as: “I think it was a love of Deadpool and sort of what that sort of global phenomenon that it was. And, his kids loved it.”

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