Ryan Reynolds Says He Felt ‘Totally Intimidated’ to Team Up with Costar Kenneth Branagh in New Movie (Exclusive)
Ryan Reynolds Says He Felt ‘Totally Intimidated’ to Team Up with Costar Kenneth Branagh in New Movie (Exclusive)
Tommy McArdleFri, September 4, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC
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Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh tell PEOPLE about teaming up for the first time in their new action-comedy movie Mayday
“When you’re playing tennis with a superior tennis player, somebody who’s truly gifted, you get better, and I just loved that,” Reynolds says of acting with the Oscar winner
Mayday is now streaming on Apple TV
Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh, two titans of the film industry, come together on-screen for the first time in their new movie Mayday. So, how did the actors feel about getting a chance to work together?
“I guess we might have Marvel’d up, but we didn’t,” Branagh, 65, tells PEOPLE during a recent interview with Reynolds, 49, about their new action-comedy.
Both men have played in the superhero sandbox — Branagh directed Chris Hemsworth’s first Thor movie in 2011, while Reynolds is the creative force behind the Deadpool movies — but they instead met for the first time during a camera test for Mayday. In the movie, Branagh portrays an American pop culture-obsessed ex-KGB agent who rescues Reynolds’ downed fighter pilot after he crash-lands in Soviet Russia.
“I can say with complete sincerity, as a big fan, particularly when this script came to me, I thought, ‘Oh, this is all about chemistry,’ ” Branagh adds, noting that prior to working together, he was impressed by Reynolds’ work with Samuel L. Jackson in the Hitman’s Bodyguard movies. “So I’m being asked to do this in the guesstimation that we might have some sort of rapport. I think that Ryan Reynolds’ generosity is screaming out there. I’m betting on this guy, and I was right.”
Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh in Apple TV’s MaydayCredit: Apple
“I also think there’s two things. One is that when we met, it was as though we knew each other for 20 years. We’d known each other forever,” Reynolds adds. “It felt like that. I mean, right away, just in lockstep. There was no overexcitement or anything.”
He continues, “I was totally intimidated to work with him because he’s a freaking genius, obviously, but at the same time, I’ve done this enough to know that when you’re playing tennis with a superior tennis player, somebody who’s truly gifted, you get better, and I just loved that.”
Branagh won an Academy Award in 2022 for Best Original Screenplay for his 2021 movie Belfast. Over the years, he’s been nominated eight times total, including nods for his work as a director on Belfast and Henry V, his performances in Henry V and My Weekwith Marilyn and his work adapting Hamlet to the big screen.
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In Mayday, Branagh takes on a different type of role and is stylized as a more-than-capable action hero.
“I get a front row seat to Ken Branagh. That’s a pinch-me kind of moment anyway,” Reynolds says. “But I sat there thinking like, ‘My God, this man is doing a Russian accent. He’s doing kung fu with a pool table triangle. He’s kicking a-- left, right and center, must just go home black and bloody blue every single night.’ ”
“Never once does he complain about one thing. Not even one thing, like ever,” he continues. “Juggling that many things at once on a set and making it all look easy, but he doesn’t make you pay for the work. He doesn’t show you all that effort that goes in to make this possible. He makes it look effortless.”
Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh in Apple TV’s Mayday
Jonathan Goldstein, who co-wrote and directed the movie with frequent collaborator John Francis Daley, says that the pair had conversations with Branagh ahead of filming regarding “how comfortable was he with doing some of these bigger stunts and fight sequences.”
As it turns out, Branagh was more than up to the task. “He, like a good Shakespearean theatre actor, wanted to do as much as he could himself, and that’s what he did,” Goldstein, 58, adds.
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Mayday is now streaming on Apple TV.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
