While it may be difficult to remember a time before he dominated the silver screen, Ryan Reynolds (IF, The Adam Project) was once just another comedy actor. However, it’s not every day that an ambitious young performer turns down a role in what would become one of the television’s classic series.
But that’s exactly what many have speculated in the years since Joss Whedon’s (The Avengers, The Cabin in the Woods) Buffy the Vampire Slayer conquered small screens everywhere, according to TVLine.
At that time, Reynolds was coming into his own on the ABC sitcom Two Guys and a Girl, where he starred as medical student Michael Eugene Leslie “Berg” Bergen. While the series ran for a respectable four seasons from 1998 to 2001, a success by any measure, it’s difficult to imagine being in Reynolds’ shoes while the much more popular Buffy was making its rounds.
Giving credence to the speculation, Reynolds stated in a 2008 interview with the Toronto Star: “I love [‘Buffy’] and I loved Joss Whedon, the creator of the show, but my biggest concern was that I didn’t want to play guy in high school. I had just come out of high school, and it was f*****g awful.” According to the Toronto Star, the young Reynolds had been bullied during his time at Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver.
After a 1992 film version of Buffy failed to live up to Whedon’s vision, he began casting for the TV adaptation, which would eventually include a legendary ensemble including Sarah Michelle Gellar (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions) as the lead, Alyson Hannigan (American Pie, How I Met Your Mother) as her best friend Willow, David Boreanaz (Bones, Valentine) as Buffy’s love interest, Angel, along with Charisma Carpenter (The Expendables, Veronica Mars), Anthony Head (Imagine Me & You, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance), and Nicholas Brendon (Coherence, Psycho Beach Party), who starred as Xander Harris, Buffy’s geeky and often immature friend. It was this role that many have speculated may have been offered to Reynolds, TVLine notes.
Reynolds recalled his time in high school during an appearance on BBC’s Top Gear in 2012, where he said that he was “a bit of a pariah” at school, noting that he had gotten kicked out after a prank involving moving a teacher’s car went awry. “In Canada, if you move it more than 10 feet, it’s a felony,” he recalled. “I didn’t know that. One city block was 100% grand theft.” In a twist of irony for the future superstar, he also failed his drama class, notes TVLine.
Though it’s safe to say that he did just fine without it, one wonders how being added to the Buffy lineup could have changed the trajectory of Reynolds’ career. The longrunning series spoke to the anxieties of an entire generation through its depictions of the occult and supernatural alongside what is an already stressful high school experience for its characters.
However, Reynolds proved himself to be more than capable of impressing viewers across a wide range of demographics. After his relatively obscure performance in Two Guys, the actor went on to star in everything from action thrillers like Red Notice, to superhero comedies like the Deadpool films, and rom-coms like The Proposal, with his films grossing a collective $6.6 billion worldwide.
He even went on to start his own production company, Maximum Effort, while famously taking a significant ownership stake in cell service Mint Mobile, which was sold to telecom giant T-Mobile for $1.6 billion in 2024.
And while Reynolds could again have a chance at scoring a part in Hulu’s upcoming reboot of Buffy, he likely wouldn’t mind sitting out yet again.