Ryan Rodney Reynolds was born on October 23, 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the youngest of four children. His father, James Chester Reynolds, was a food wholesaler, and his mother, Tammy, worked as a retail-store saleswoman. Between 1991-93, Ryan appeared in Fifteen (1990), a Nickleodeon series taped in Florida with many other Canadian actors. After the series ended, he returned to Vancouver where he played in a series of forgettable television movies. He did small roles in Glenn Close's Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995) and CBS's update of In Cold Blood (1996). However, his run of luck had led him to decide to quit acting.

Family

Trivia

Has a fear of flying since he once went skydiving and parachute failed to open at the first attempt.
Failed his high school drama class.
Used to work in a grocery store.
Attended Kwantlen College for a few months before leaving to pursue his acting career.
Is the youngest of four brothers. Two of his three elder brothers are policemen.
Received a Youth in Film Award nomination for best actor for his work on Nickelodeon's teen drama Fifteen (1990).
Accompanied musician Alanis Morissette to the 2003 Canadian Juno Music Awards.
In early 2001, he met actress 'Rachael Leigh Cook' and the two immediately hit it off. However, Rachael had to fly to Britain shortly after to film Blow Dry (2001). Ryan ended up surprising her, pulling out of his filming schedule, and following her all the way to London. It was a success and they ended up dating for a year.

(on kissing the older woman in Van Wilder: Party Liaison (2002)) On that note, that being said, it was damn hard kissing her. You've never experienced anything until you've had a mature, darting tongue in your mouth.
Acting has given me a way to channel my angst. I feel like an overweight, pimply faced kid a lot of the time - and finding a way to access that insecurity, and put it toward something creative is incredibly rewarding. I feel very lucky.
[on his relationship with Alanis Morissette] Our relationship couldn't be better. There's no truth to the rumours we would temporarily broken up.
I never took acting classes, but I knew I could do it based on the skill with which I lied to my parents on a regular basis!
I'm not a hockey fan, which is probably why I had to leave Canada in the first place.
(on getting into acting) I started when I was 13 years old. I did a really horrible soap opera called Fifteen for Nickelodeon that stoned college kids kept on the air for three years. And then the first movie I did was in Sri Lanka when I was 14. I spent three months there. I was there without my parents working on a movie in a country that was in the midst of a civil war. It was pretty wild.
I did two trips in 2006. I did one through New Zealand on a motorcycle, and I tried to cross Australia on a motorcycle from one end of the continent to the other. My friend and I did not make it, unfortunately - he crashed, and we had to find a hospital.