Ryan Reynolds & Hugh Jackman Talk Fans’ “Sky-High” Expectations For ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’: “You Have To Exceed Them”

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman had their work cut out for them when it came to the MCU‘s highly-anticipated superhero team-up. At Monday’s Deadpool & Wolverine premiere in New York, the duo told Deadline about the pressure to meet fans’ “sky-high” expectations of finally bringing their characters together on the big screen.

“I think both of us had such high expectations for the movie,” said Jackman. “So, yeah there’s risk because we wanted this to exceed those expectations, and both of these characters mean so much to us. Our friendship is one of the most important things in my life. So, we wanted to be as great as we could be, and thankfully for me, it’s exceeded every one.” Reynolds added, “Those same tenants could be broadly applied to the audiences of these movies. I mean, their expectations are sky-high. And you can’t just meet them, you have to exceed them, not just in one sequence or broadly, in every moment of the movie.

“The thing I’m most proud of is every frame of Deadpool & Wolverine is thoughtful in the sense that we spent so much time and so much detail, and paid so much attention to the detail in every single moment… and it just pays off,” he said. Before his first solo outing in 2016’s Deadpool and its 2018 sequel, Reynolds originated the live-action role of Wade Wilson alongside Jackman in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Emma Corrin, who stars in Deadpool & Wolverine as Professor Charles Xavier’s villainous twin sister Cassandra Nova, told Deadline they were “quite scared to begin with” working with known improviser Reynolds in their Marvel debut. “Actually, he does so much ad-libbing for his own character,” explained Corrin. “But anything involving anyone else, he offers stuff up. He’s like, ‘Why don’t you try it this way? That was great. What about this? I just had this idea.’ It’s a very ‘yes, and’ mentality.”