Ryan Reynolds says his father was ‘never an easy person to be around’: ‘He was like a skin-covered landmine’

Actor opened up about his anxiety in a new podcast interview

Ryan Reynolds has opened up about the anxiety he suffers from and he believes it began over his tense relationship with his father.

Speaking about the connection between anxiety and success on theSmartLess podcast, the Free Guy actor said: “It started as a kid. My household that I grew up in wasn’t overly awful in the grand scheme of things, certainly as compared to some people, but my dad was never an easy person to be around.

“He was like a skin-covered landmine. Like you just never knew when you were gonna step on the wrong spot, and he was just going to explode.”

Reynolds said this meant that, as a child, he was always trying to guess what was going to happen next. “I think predicting the future is a big brick in a wall of anxiety,” he said. “We cannot predict the future, so you’re constantly living in this thing that may or may not happen, this place-based scenario.”

Linking anxiety and his career, he added: “In this business, we all kind of tend to do that, where we project into the future. ‘What’s it like to be this person?’”

This isn’t the first time Reynolds has spoken about his mental health. In 2017 he told Variety: “I have three older brothers. Our father was tough. He wasn’t easy on anyone. And he wasn’t easy on himself. I think the anxiety might have started there, trying to find ways to control others by trying to control myself. At the time, I never recognised that. I was just a twitchy kid.”

Reynolds’ father, James, was a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman before retiring from the force and going to work as a foods wholesaler. He died from pneumonia last year.