Ryan Reynolds on Why His Kids Are Terrified of His Iconic ‘Deadpool’ Character

On the promo trail for John Krasinski’s new family comedy IF, Ryan Reynolds revealed to Today that his children are terrified of his most iconic character. Reynolds shares four children with his wife, Blake Lively, including Betty, 4; Ines, 7; and James, 9. They have yet to publicly announce the name of their fourth child.

“My daughter Betty, she has a very vivid imagination,” Reynolds explained, “so there’s always somebody standing behind me and I turn around quickly like a horror movie and I realize no, it’s just Harvey from the old movie Harvey. It’s a six-foot-five rabbit," the actor joked to Savannah Guthrie.

“At least it’s not Deadpool,” Guthrie cracked. “That would be…that’s NSFK: Not Safe for Kids.”

But Reynolds revealed that his young children are intimately familiar with his foul-mouthed character, and they don’t like him one bit.

“I ruined them with that because I have the original [Deadpool] suit…like a mold of my body downstairs in the basement," Reynolds explained, as Guthrie joked she was "starting to understand those issues you’re talking about."

“Yeah, exactly,” Reynolds shot back. “And it was just sort of silhouetted one night and one of my kids went down there, screamed bloody murder," he went on. "I ran down there because I forgot it was down there and I screamed bloody murder. So, yeah, no, everybody’s pretty well damaged.”

It seems unlikely that Reynolds’ young children will be in the audience when Deadpool & Wolverine, the third installment in the raunchy franchise, hits theaters on July 26.