From directorShawn Levy, the action adventure comedyFree Guy(scheduled to open in theaters on December 11th) follows a bank teller named Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who discovers that he’s actually a background player in an open-world video game. When he crosses paths with a woman named as Molotov Girl within the game and Milly (Jodie Comer) in the real world, Guy decides that he doesn’t want to just be the good guy who saves the world but instead wants to be the great guy who rewrites the world his way.
During a virtual press conference to discuss the wild new original story, co-stars Ryan Reynolds (who’s also a producer on the film) and Jodie Comer, along wit filmmaker Shawn Levy, talked about the inspiration forFree Guy, balancing comedy with action and romance, hiring funny people and allowing them to unleash their comedic genius, the experience they hope audiences will have with the film, character relationships, making yourself the punchline, and how our current life experience will add another dimension to the way people will view the story.
Question: Shawn, where did the original inspiration forFree Guycome from?
SHAWN LEVY: The movie was a screenplay that got sent to Ryan and I. Matt Lieberman, the screenwriter, wrote the original screenplay, and it was immediately clear to Ryan and I that this was a very good script with a phenomenal idea and that it had this central idea about a background character realizing that maybe he could have agency and empowerment in his world. That idea was both a big idea conceptually, as far as gaming and plot, but also a big idea thematically, which was maybe more important to Ryan and I in those early days. It felt like something that scratched at ideas that matter and that we can all relate to. That was in 2018, and then we made it to 2019, and now in 2020, we really relate to the idea that, “Oh, wait, maybe the world doesn’t need to remain as you find it. Maybe you can have an impact on circumstances around you.”
Shawn, this movie balances being a big blockbuster with comedy, action and romance really adeptly. How did you approach taking those elements and not having any one overpower the other in your storytelling?
LEVY: I feel like that’s my job, and if I’m gonna do my job, on some fundamental level, tone is the job. There are the shots and the performance but tone is the job and I knew the movie had to deliver on spectacle and action, and hopefully it does that. As we made the movie, Ryan and I spoke often about this, and I know all of our fellow collaborators felt this – we let the movie tell us what it wanted. We leaned into the Buddy-Guy relationship and the warmth of that because we knew [Lil Rel Howery] was funny but we also realized, “Oh, my God, he has the biggest heart and the warmth that he can express is so special.” And so, we leaned into the heart of that friendship between Rel’s character and Ryan’s character. Similarly, the comedic genius of Utkarsh [Ambudkar] led to fleshing out those gamer programmer characters. And then, if you have Joe Keery and Jodie Comer in the same movie, you just get out of the way. You write for that and set them up to do their thing, and then get out of the way. Ryan and I would commute back and forth from our shoot in Boston to New York, and we would sit side by side on a train and rewrite all of the Jodie-Joe scenes, so that the friendship story of these two young game designers and code writers could really move to center stage in the film. So, the balance came from listening to the movie as it told us what it wanted to be.
Ryan, during Comic Con in Brazil last year, you said thatFree Guywas the best experience you’ve ever had. Why is that?
RYAN REYNOLDS: Wow, I don’t think I said it was the best experience I’d ever had because my kids [could see this]. I do think it’s the best movie making experience that I’ve ever had, easily, but I also think it’s best movie I’ve ever done. It’s the most pertinent to our times, in that sense. Where I feelDeadpoolwas a movie that was pertinent to the comic book culture when it came out, this really to me speaks in a broader spectrum of where we are in the world and not only that but how we are in the world. That’s one of the reasons I think it’s my favorite movie but also the experience certainly plays into that and this incredible cast. It’s not every day that you work with a group of people where each one brings something unexpected and stronger than you’ve ever had before. Each one has authorship of their role. It’s just so nice to have a cast that you can absolutely 100 percent count on to blow you away, every single day. That was what made the experience so special.
What is your one-line pitch forFree Guyto someone who’s not familiar with it and who’s maybe only seen the trailer?
JODIE COMER: I just dare them to come away from this without feeling completely elated and wanting to skip out of the theater, or wherever it is that they end up watching it. For me, that’s what I was so taken back by. When you see action comedy written down, you think that you know what it is you’re about to watch but this film evokes so much emotion in you and it has so much heart, right at the core of it.
LEVY: I’m currently editing the longest bonus featurette in the history of cinema, and it is only of Taika [Waititi] alt takes, improvisations, riffs and 19 versions for every joke. He’s such a huge part of the movie and really rounds out the cast. When you look at the call sheet and you look at who you get to work with every day, you kind of bounce to work and the on screen results are magical.
REYNOLDS: When I first saw the script, the log line spoke to me, which was just, “Action comedy – Bank teller discovers he’s a background player in an open world video game.” I thought that was provocative and amazing. But then, as we marched through 2018, 2019 and 2020, just seeing how this movie is a fastball of joy, I feel like we’re missing some of that right now in our world and in our culture and in the entertainment we imbibe. This movie could not come along sooner for me, just as a movie watcher and somebody who enjoys entertainment and culture, so I’m really excited about that. I think it’s pretty damn timely.
Jodie, coming offKilling Eve, why were you interested in this role, in what if your first really big broad comedy project?
COMER: I had wrapped onKilling EveSeason 2 the night before, and I flew to New York the morning after to do my audition with Ryan. It was the end of a six month shoot, so I was a bit of a zombie but flew to New York to hopefully begin the next opportunity and worked with Shawn and Ryan in the audition room, which was just so much fun. What I really gauged from that experience was the amount of playfulness within the both of them. They also create an atmosphere that is like nothing you do is wrong, and you’re able to be fearless and silly and try things and think on your toes and improvise. It was such a joyful experience that I left feeling like I’d done a day’s filming. So, it was to work with these people. I hadn’t done a film before and this felt so much bigger than myself, but then to work on that film set, it couldn’t have been more perfect, as an introduction.
LEVY: Jodie plays two characters. She plays this very physical Molotov Girl, which is her avatar in the game, and then a completely different Milly in the real world. Ryan and I saw a lot of actresses for that part but three lines into Jodie’s audition, Ryan and I kind of looked at each other and we were like, “What are we seeing?” We just knew it was a revelation. This was really a very, very important new actor, whose range had wowed us inKilling Evebut we didn’t have any sense that she also does comedy and could do this American character. Her ability is impressive.
Ryan and Jodie, can you talk about your characters and their relationship?
COMER: So, I meet Guy, played by Ryan, through the video game but in the real world, I play a girl called Milly, who’s created this avatar. They meet in the game and she thinks he is a real person and lives in the outside world like her and they form this relationship. As the story unfolds, they realize that they actually both need each other’s help. There is a danger of something happening to the game and they both need each other to bring out a self-realization in one another, which is really beautiful. Their relationship really evolves throughout the film.
REYNOLDS: Guy is as simple as they come when we meet him. He’s a character that goes about his day and does the same six or seven things. He’s on a loop each day with his world, and that’s all he knows. He’s very childlike. And then, when he meets Jodie’s character, Milly, he really grows. He starts to change and evolve, and what happens afterwards is pretty astonishing. It’s a character that really starts to gain layers, the more time he spends with this other person in the game.
Ryan, in the marketing for this and also withDeadpool, you’ve really leaned into self-referential and self-deprecating comedy, poking fun at your own filmography and past. When did you get comfortable with making yourself the punchline?
REYNOLDS: Well, it seemed like a really interesting white space, to be honest. In the marketing world, in particular, you don’t get a lot of people shining a spotlight on their own pitfalls. Careers are ebbs and flows. They’re ups and downs. Throughout history, at least from my perspective, there’s usually very little acknowledgment of when something doesn’t work. Everybody’s like, “It’s great!” So, it’s more about just laughing at myself and not laughing at other people, necessarily, that are involved in a project. It’s about laughing at myself and my own contribution to that failure, or however you wanna characterize it. It was just something that I thought was worth examining. You take that energy that maybe is hurtful or that’s dragging you down, and you end up creating a mental Judo with it. You’re using its energy against it and creating something positive out of it. I wrote it into the firstDeadpoolscript where my character says something like, “Please don’t make this suit green or animated,” when he’s being shoved into the superhero factory and I noticed that it felt good to shine a light on that for a second. It’s just something I’ve always done. The most significant thing that’s ever happened in my career is laughing at myself, since the start of the work, and there’s plenty there to laugh at. You lay in bed at night and think, “Oh, God, this thing I did was so awful or silly or ridiculous,” and that fuels it.
The level of detail in making the world of Free City really unique is incredible. Can you share a non-spoilery element of the movie that you got the biggest kick out of?
REYNOLDS: The Easter eggs are very important to me and they’re very important to Shawn, Easter eggs are detail, and detail is also important to us. The movie is riddled with Easter eggs everywhere. There are little presents around every corner, and we all searched for items that I think are really interesting and I’m really happy are in and populated throughout the world of Free City.
Jodie, since this is your first big film, do you have any favorite on-set memories from production?
COMER: For me, every day was a learning curve. [This cast] comes from improvisation and comedy, and I am the complete opposite. I have, my whole life, clung to a script and whatever dialogue I have. So, I felt like I was just a sponge, soaking up and learning from everything that these guys were doing. I’d also never been to Boston before, and it was the height of summer, so it was just gorgeous.
It’s fair to say that 2020 has not played out the way anyone expected, including thatFree Guywas supposed to come out in July and now it will be out on December 11th. Do you think our current situation adds another dimension to this film and the way people will see it, that you hadn’t considered while making it?
REYNOLDS: Yeah, absolutely. People move mountains. When that collective consciousness raises up a bit, real change happens and we’re seeing that, in every second of our lives. Things are moving so fast right now. When I think about a news event that happened three days ago, I’m like, “Wasn’t that in the ‘80s?” It’s just mind-blowing. Our movie has two major facets, the real world and in-game. It really speaks to authorship and how important authorship is, not just of your own creations but of your own life by saying, “I can personally make things change.” The more people that do that, as a collective, the more things change. That’s really what this movie is about. It’s about people taking some of their power back and stepping into their light, and growing and making the world a better place, not just in a world that’s embracing not only equality but equity, which is a different thing than equality. We all get to experience the collective pot, so to speak. So, there’s a lot of really cool stuff that’s happening in-game, and then in the real world in our story.
Free Guysis out in theaters on December 11th. you may watch thenew trailer here.
Christina Radish is a Senior Reporter of Film, TV, and Theme Parks for Collider. You can follow her on Twitter@ChristinaRadish.
