‘I Wasn’t Trying to Shame Him or Teach Him a Lesson’

Ryan Reynolds revealed at TIFF (via Entertainment Weekly) that he personally called a journalist who had once mocked 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,” which opened the festival.

“There was a lot of things we left out of the documentary, journalists just saying stuff. One of them I called,” Reynolds said about the journalist who was on camera making inflammatory comments about Candy’s weight. “I didn’t put it in the movie, but I called this journalist just to see.”

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“I wasn’t trying to shame him or teach him a lesson,” Reynolds continued. “[I told him] I took it out of the movie, but I’d put it in the movie if you wanted to talk about it, because maybe you have something to say about it, about your journey whenever it comes to something like that. We had such a thoughtful conversation about it.”

Even with this journalist removed from “John Candy: I Like Me,” Hanks’ film still contains many examples of interviewers essentially calling Candy “fat” to his face.

“You look at interview after interview and horrible things are being said and questions are being asked in incredibly insensitive ways,” Hanks told Variety before the film’s TIFF premiere. “It’s tough to see how uncomfortable John was in almost every clip. And he had good reason, because some of the things that people said were disgusting and would not be tolerated today.”

“John Candy: I Like Me” includes interviews with dozens of the late comedian’s former co-stars, including Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Catherine O’Hara. The film made headlines out of TIFF for including one interview with Candy’s “Uncle Buck” co-star Macaulay Culkin in which he reveals Candy stood up for him when it was clear Culkin’s father was “already a monster.”

“Even before the wave crested and the ‘Home Alone’ stuff was happening, it was not hard to see how difficult my father was. It was no secret,” Culkin said. “All of a sudden, the fame and the money came, and he became an infamous monster. He was already not a good guy. I think John was looking a little side-eyed, like, ‘Is everything alright over there? You doing good? Good day? Everything’s alright? Everything good at home? Alright.’”

“John Candy: I Like Me” premieres Oct. 10 on Amazon Prime Video.

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