Ryan Reynolds has spoken candidly about his difficulties with maintaining his mental health. Reynolds admitted that he struggles with finding a balance but that he has his “own little rituals” that he performs to “stay grounded.”
The 46-year-old Deadpool actor admitted to Page Six on Monday, October 9, that he’s ““not always great [at it]” and that there are times when he feels like he’s “spinning out of control.”
He confessed, “When I’m spiralling that way, I tend to overbook myself.” “I kind of know about those stuff, and I handle it as best you can.”
The actor has previously spoken up about his difficulties with mental health, claiming that he has experienced anxiety his “whole life,” as he told CBS’ Sunday Morning in 2022.
“I feel like I have two parts of my personality, that one takes over when that happens,” he disclosed at the time.
Prior to one of his many appearances on Late Night With David Letterman before the host retired in 2015, Reynolds remembers feeling particularly anxious.
“I remember I’d be standing backstage before the curtain would open, and I would think to myself, ‘I’m gonna die. I’m literally gonna die here. The curtain’s gonna open up and I’m just gonna be, I’m just gonna be a symphony of vomit,’ just, like, something horrible’s going to happen,” he explained in the CBS interview.
Nevertheless, everything changes as soon as Reynolds takes centre stage.
“As soon as that curtain opens — and this happens in my work a lot too — it’s like this little guy takes over,” the Just Friends star recalled. “And he’s like, ‘I got this. You’re cool.’ I feel, like, my heart rate drops, and my breathing calms, and I just sort of go out and I’m this different person. And I leave that interview going, ‘God, I’d love to be that guy!’”
The actor, who shares daughters James, 8, Inez, 7, Betty, 4 and another child born in February with Blake Lively, stated in June 2021 that his kids had given him the confidence to talk about his mental health for the first time.
“Part of it is that I have three daughters at home, and part of my job as a parent is to model behaviors, model what it’s like to be sad, and model what it’s like to be anxious or angry. There’s space for all these things,” Reynolds told Entertainment Tonight at the time. “Part of that is to destigmatize things and create a conversation around [mental health]. I know that when I felt at the absolute bottom, it’s usually because I felt like I was alone in something I was feeling. So I think when people talk about it, it kind of sets other people free.”