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Ryan Reynolds says he's 'grateful' he wrote a letter to his father before he died.
In an interview with Peoplehe Deadpool and Wolverine The star spoke candidly about how his father's death a decade ago still affects him to this day. His father, James Chester Reynolds, died in 2015 at the age of 74 after a nearly 20-year battle with Parkinson's disease. The 47-year-old actor has since reflected on his relationship with his late father.
“I know who I am now,” the actor reflects on the past decade. “I’ve known who I am for about ten years, and my father is gone. But when I look back, I’m constantly piecing together the story and I realize I wasn’t really accepting my own responsibility.”
His father was a former police officer who preferred to hold on rather than talk about what he was going through, according to Ryan, which made it difficult for him and his father to be vulnerable with each other and eventually led to them growing apart. James also suffered from delusions and hallucinations as a result of the illness.
“At the time, I thought my dad was losing his mind,” Ryan recalls, noting that it was only later that he learned his father struggled with two lesser-known symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. “There were conspiracy webs he spun about ‘this is going on’ and that ‘these people might be after me’ or ‘this person is out to get me.’ And things like that that were completely different from the man I grew up with and knew.”
Although they had grown apart, Ryan wrote a heartfelt letter to his father months before his death.
“I sent a letter to my dad about five months before he died, and I’m so grateful that I did,” he revealed. “The letter was basically a list of all the wonderful things he had done. Every time he showed up or every time he played with me outside after baseball practice. Every time he was just there. And if the man couldn’t express his emotions in a dynamic way, well, a lot of people can’t.”
“The guy was born in the 40s. That’s okay,” he added. “So I’m very grateful that I sent that letter. I know for a fact that it meant a lot to him and it goes back to my earliest memories to this day or as close to today as possible. So I was able to close that chapter, but I wasn’t with him when he passed away and I wish I had been.”
Learning more about what was happening with his father inspired Ryan to partner with the More to Parkinson's educational campaign, a program that provides resources to professionals and caregivers.
In the decade since his father's death, Ryan welcomed four children with his wife, Blake Lively, naming his eldest daughter “James” as a tribute to his late father, and cemented his Hollywood stardom with his role as the title character in Marvel's Dead pool series.
