Interview with Ryan Reynolds

This is (ahem) a bit off-color. Respectable citizens be warned.

Ryan Reynolds, who stars as the title character in "National Lampoon's Van Wilder," is a likable guy. If his eminently affable performance as the biggest man on campus in this welcome restoration of the "National Lampoon" franchise wasn't proof enough, he was more than accomodating and charming during a phone interview conducted at 7:15 am on a recent Tuesday.

Ryan Reynolds also really, really wants you to see this movie. "It's like a fine line between that shameless plugging that actors do for their movies and actually meaning it," he explains. "That's why I say it's sort of an interesting situation that I'm in, because here I am promoting a movie that I actually think is really funny. So every interview I do, so far on this promotional tour, I want to say, 'No no no, really! It's really actually funny! Go see it!'"

The fact that the movie actually really is really funny, to the indefatigable Reynolds, does not seem like enough. He praises our fine institution of learning: "The college I went to, you sent three proofs of purchase from a Cap'n Crunch box to get into, whereas you guys all went to these phenomenal American universities." He praises our seductive good looks: "Whenever I come out here, I think, 'Wow, the people are so much more beautiful.' I don't know. Maybe it's just that bohemian-natural thing." And he agrees to do an interview with a reporter from a second-tier public university at 7:15 am on a Tuesday morning.

Not that Reynolds does not recognize the basic absurdity of the situation. "It's very, very, very, very early, Andrew," he says immediately after the introductions, in a voice curdled by some combination of incessant air travel, sleep deprivation, massive coffee intake and other such talks to other such reporters.

"It is early, but I need to go to all my classes today," I respond. "This is what your film taught me: to fulfill my potential as well as wandering around doing fun things."

"It's a long road to the middle," he quips back.

"But I can get there," I say in a solemn tone. "You provided me the road map. And I thank you for it."

"Thanks, brother," he responds with similar solemnity.

Now that we have achieved some minimal level of trust, Reynolds clues me in further. "The same as you, I was really surprised" that "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" was extremely amusing, he admits. "When we finished the movie and I watched the screening for the first time, I sat back and I went, 'Oh my God! That's a funny movie!' It's not just another one of these flash-in-the-pan, young-oriented films.

"We laughed our way through that entire production, myself and [director] Walt Becker - this is my second film with him. And that's what worried me, because there's this old saying that goes: 'If you're having a great time on the shoot, chances are your movie sucks.' So for us, we managed to break that mold, because we had an absolute phenomenal time filming that movie. It was just nonstop laughter. In fact, our producers were all over us because we were constantly burning film because we were just acting like jackasses the whole time.

"There were so many moments where we'd just start riffing and going into this whole other realm [into] which no one should go. It was called 'the bad place.'" Usually, the "bad place" contained "verbiage that would only be found in your average NC-17 movie or John Holmes video library." Nevertheless, check the DVD.

It may surprise some people who see the film that the production even had a "bad place," especially since Reynolds identifies the main lessons the film teaches us college denizens as "It can be oddly disgusting to drink gallons and gallons of dog semen" and "Making out with ninety-year-old women is not as fun as it looks."

This first, based on a hellacious prank played on the self-impressed members of the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity (check the acronym), demanded a few follow-up questions. The most obvious:

"Do you know what they actually used for the dog semen? I mean, I can't imagine that you just went around jacking off dogs and putting it into pastries."

"No, no, no," Reynolds assures me. "That was human semen."

"From the trough?"

Reynolds starts laughing. "We haven't told that actor who had to drink it yet. No, it was just some sort of custard. It was actually not bad. I had a couple of swigs myself. It was actually, you know, a little, it was sugary...Let's drop it." More laughter. "It was nasty! Nasty!"

Still, for Reynolds, both the sweet dog custard and the nonagenarian nookie ("That was work, that day") fit into the overall fabric of the movie, as opposed to many teen comedies in which the grossers seem to be the be-all and end-all of the plot. "This movie's different than a lot of other movies, I think, because a lot of movies start off really big and then fizzle. This movie sort of builds from the beginning. The first twenty or twenty-five minutes, I find it kind of hard, because a lot of it is building and setting up for later. So it's kind of interesting. Those moments, like those eclairs, you don't really see them coming." I think the pun was intended.

I asked one question on behalf of those of us who enjoy the college comedies but still can't even imagine how anyone could think this is what college is like: "How do you maintain your composure as an actor when, in every scene you're in, you're pretty much surrounded by hot women?"

Reynolds laughs easily. "There are some distractions - I'd be lying if I said there weren't. [But when] you live in L.A., you live with every prom king and prom queen from every town in the United States. So when you see all these pretty people, you realize that if you want to have any sort of connection with them, you're going to have to find something to hang onto a little bit more than just, you know, the fact that she's sponsored by 3M. It's sometimes hard to concentrate. But you can't have one without the other. If you do your job, I suppose all that other stuff can wait."

"Right. You'll reap all the rewards later, when you become a famous national actor with a movie."

"Gosh. I dunno," Reynolds chuckles.

Finally, like many of us, Reynolds is excited to see the "National Lampoon" cinematic imprimatur back on its feet. "Obviously all of their movies have not been phenomenal, but for the most part those [films] are huge influences on me. I'm so proud to be a part of the Lampoon legacy." Appropriate enough for a film whose tagline is "The Tradition Continues."

All this just goes to show that if you like the gross-out college comedies, you'll do well to go to the screening of "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" at the Hoff [whenever it was in Feburary 2002]. Reynolds really means it, and so do I.

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