Ryan Reynolds is a man who goes by many titles: actor, dad, producer, 2010's sexiest man alive and now…ringleader?
In an interview with Fatherly on Friday, Nov. 12, the Deadpool actor lovingly compared his family and their busy schedules to a "circus" that's filled to the brim with nonstop activity.
"We have three kids, it's a circus," he explained. "It's quite literally a circus all the time. There's always something going on. There's always some extracurricular thing that the kids are doing, that sort of thing."
Reynolds is wrapping up the last of his major projects—and making surprise visits on late-night television—before he temporarily steps away from acting to devote more time to his wife, Blake Lively, and their three daughters: James, 6, Inez, 5, and 2-year-old Betty. Although he doesn't have a return date scheduled yet, he has said that he plans to make family his first priority until "at least summer 2022."
"The main point is that I'm there for my kids in the morning and night and I'm getting up with them and I'm putting them to bed at night," he said. "Those are things that I think they should be able to take for granted. Those are not things that should feel special in any way, shape, or form."
It's a new role that Reynolds feels personally ready to take on, and one he understands comes with "obscene privilege." He says the decision came down to two major factors: allowing his wife the time and space to "do some of the things she wants to do" and to be able to capture more irreplaceable moments with his children.
"I'm a working dad, she's a working mom," he said, "and we trade-off and we make sure that we each have time for each other and we also have time for our kids. And that's the work you do. And that's part of the job. I think that's the thing we love."
The decision to commit to more time with their children, however, Reynolds described as "purely selfish."
"It's just that I don't want to miss this time," he stressed. "You don't get this time back. And my kids are in school now, so they can't travel with me to location. I have to be there. So it's important and I'm super lucky I get to do it."
He was quick to add that the sabbatical does not mean he's going to put the brakes on working entirely. "I'll be in development on tons of stuff and working during the day while they're at school," he said. "But for the most part, yeah. I'm not going to be shooting any films for a while."
Reynolds founded his own production company called Maximum Effort in 2018, and he co-owns Welsh football club Wrexham F.C. with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney.
The star is also going to carve out some time to explore more of his own interests: "I'm going to experiment with my cooking abilities again. And yeah, it's going to be nice." His special dish? "I've been making pizzas," he shared. "That's a lot of fun."