Deadpool 2 ’s Julian Dennison Isn’t in a Hurry to Grow Up

New Zealand actor Julian Dennison is not your average 15-year-old, if the confidence and exuberance with which he throws himself into his first GQ shoot is anything to go by. At one point, he crosses his arms across his chest in the style of the X-Force gesture (and, as he points out, both the Wonder Woman and Black Panther gesture as well). “Wakanda forever!” he shouts into the camera, shortly before his mom (“mum”) steps up to adjust his ear stud.

Dennison’s been acting since he was even younger, his breakout role being in the amazing 2016 Taika Waititi movie, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, in which he plays the runaway orphan Ricky Baker. Now, he’s starring in Deadpool 2 opposite the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, and Zazie Beetz. Dennison spoke with GQ about the pressures of acting at such a young age, how he separates his work life from his family life, and what he really thinks of Reynolds’s first foray into superhero movies, the 2011 disaster Green Lantern.

GQ: Let’s go all the way back. New Zealand, how'd you get into acting? How do you get into that first movie?

Julian Dennison: My family's been in the industry. I have a lot of family. My mum was an actor. A few of my aunties and uncles. My grandfather was actually a writer. Anyway I was at school one day and they were holding open auditions for a film called Shopping. We got a callback and they're like, "We have one more young man going for the role called Christian." At the time they didn't know Christian was my twin brother. Could've been me sitting right here, could've been him.

But I ended up getting the part and then we did Paper Planes, as well, an Australian film I did with Rob Connolly, and then I did a Don't Do Drugs and Drive ad.

And that's how you met Taika Waititi.

Yeah, that's how I met Taika. He said to me that he wanted to work with me again, he just didn't have the project at the time. I didn't really have to audition for Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Taika just was like, "Yeah, you have this part." We did that and that was my breakout film. That's when I went to Sundance, and then we spent two weeks out here [in America] and met with studios and casting agencies and stuff. Just to make contacts.

At the Fox meeting, they said, "Oh yeah, let's talk about Deadpool 2." I hadn't seen the first one yet, because it's rated R in New Zealand and my mum was like, "Yeah, it's Deadpool mate, you're not watching it anytime soon." I only saw it a few weeks ago. They cut the sex montage out for me. I don't really want to watch it as well. People have weird minds.

Ryan Reynolds clearly has a specific vision for these films.

Ryan Reynolds is an artistic man. It was really cool. We met with David Leitch and he's like, "You'll get to meet Ryan." Yeah, right. I'm like like, "He'd be too busy." He came out and we're like, "Yooooooo!" But we weren't like that at the time. We're like, "Yeah cool. Yeah, nice to meet you man." He was wearing a green Christmas sweater. It wasn't Christmas. Super subtle. Just a little bit of Christmas trees.

Then we came back the next day and we read a bit of the script and did a chemistry read. And I got the part.

It sounds like it all happened very fast from the release of Wilderpeople onwards.

I remember Ryan telling me I was really the only choice. When he was writing the character, he said he could hear me speaking it and he just wanted me to play it. That was really cool. He said he knew Taika Waititi as well. He saw Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

How old were you when you filmed Hunt for the Wilderpeople?

I was 12. It's been about three years since we shot it, but I was 13 when it came out.

Even as someone who'd already had a foothold in the industry, is working with actors like Sam Neill at 12 intimidating?

To be honest, Jurassic Park was before my time. I was super into the superhero movies and stuff. Mum and dad, they were like, "Sam Neill—honey, do you know who that is?" I'm like, "No. I'll Google him." He's the nicest person and a big kid.

I remember we were doing a Q&A and it was Taika, Sam, and me. They're like, "How was it working together?" And I think Taika goes, "One acts 12, one's spiritually 12, and one's actually 12."

New Zealand's a small county, but there's a really specific filmmaking sensibility.

Yeah, you know it's from New Zealand. You can just smell it. I love Whale Rider. That's one of my favorite films of all time. New Zealand, it's very tight knit and everyone knows each other.

I remember Taika Waititi, when he was making Thor and he was making sure to hire a lot of New Zealand natives—

I was expecting the call, man. Sam had a cameo. Cohen Holloway, an amazing actor, had a cameo. Matt Damon had a cameo! I was like, "Mate, you've got two of the [Wilderpeople] cast." Rachel House also had a cameo, as well playing Topaz, and I'm like, "I could have been dead guy number 300." II would’ve been fine with anything. I could have been a tree.

John Brolin's shown that you can switch superhero universes.

Mate, y, ah. He's almost 60. He's on the success train isn't he? He's the conductor.

Taika was careful to be inclusive of Māori people in his cast and crew—

Aboriginal as well, when they shot it in Australia. It was really cool that he's bringing that and the indigenous culture and he's representing his country on a global scale. Respectfully and truly.

Is that representation important to you as well?

Oh yeah. I would love to do the same if I was able to start directing or producing. Even my family, if I'm older or my kids wanted to start, I would definitely support them. It's such a cool industry. It's really hard, but family, they've always been there for me. They were there when I was born, mate!

They raised me so they knew me before all of this happened. I'm not saying I don't show who I am, but there's a line where you don't want to...

You're young. I think you need to keep a bit of it back for now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't do interviews in our home and stuff. That's our space and that's a place where we can be a family. That's really special to me.

Is New Zealand still your home right now?

I'm not planning on moving any time soon. I love to chill with family and I just love Christmas. It's during our summer. There's a camp called Brookfield Camp in Wainuiomata in Wellington and we go there every Christmas. We book a cabin. One small cabin so we all just sleep on the floor on mattresses. We have a barbecue. We have a bonfire at night. It's in the middle of the bush and we play Hide and Go Seek at night with torches and stuff. I've got 51 first cousins. Mum was from a family of 12. Nan—my grandmother—was from a family of 20. We have a lot of family and cousins so it feels like a proper camp. They don't see me as Julian Dennison. I'm not the family souvenir. But if an action figure comes out on myself, I will get 30 action figures and I'll just give one each out. I would just buy them all action figures of myself so they can sleep next to it at night.

Like you said before, you're technically not even old enough to see this movie alone yet. Did they have to make any accommodations for you on set?

Tell you what, I wish I had a swear jar on set. I would be a rich man right now. But yeah, if I wasn't comfortable with saying something, David and the writers and Ryan, they were really accommodating. There's a lot of colorful language in the movie, and the first time I watched it was with just me and my mum and my pop. I would look over to her every time I would swear in the film and be like, "This is awkward." Because I was sitting right next to her, but she loved the film. Everyone loved the film. I was sitting next to my twin brother Christian last night when he was watching it and when I swore he looked over to me and he's like, "Ooh, you're going to get in trouble from the aunties."

There's no swearing at summer camp then?

Oh yeah, there's no swearing at Christmas. Only when the adults play cards.

You and Ryan spend a lot of time together in the film. How was the building that chemistry?

Oh, it's not easy. It's Ryan. Even after filming with him for a month, I would still be nervous working with him and saying hello to him. He's been in the industry so much longer, done amazing, super cool films like [he lowers his voice and holds my gaze] Green Lantern was amazing.

No. That was a joke by the way. I don't want people to believe that I liked that film.

But he made it a bit easier because he's such a nice guy. David Leitch is an amazing director, he was really good. He was very specific on what he wanted me to do.

Was there ever a point where they considered giving you an American accent?

Yeah, I think it was a super quick conversation. I'm like, "Oh, do I have to do an American accent?" And they're like, "Yeah, we're thinking about it." And I go "I just want to let you know, it's really bad.” They're like, "Oh, okay."

Your character, Firefist, becomes a villain in an alternate future timeline in the movie. Were you filled in on his life between Deadpool 2 and when we see him in the future?

Sala Baker, he plays the older me, another New Zealander. He played a general in Lord of the Things. I forgot who he played but he was a super nice dude. I could imagine whatever I wanted, but in the future, he's done dark. He's gone really evil because he's alone in this movie and he stays alone.

It was really cool and really draining, I guess, mentally, to think how bad he's gotten. How evil he is, because especially during the emotional scenes. You've got to keep that anger in you. Also, I look good as a future me. It was a really big glow up. Really good tan. Really nice facial features. I'm just complimenting Sala now.

Are you contracted for more Deadpool stuff at the moment?

Yeah, or they might just get sick of me and kill me off in the first ten minutes of the next film. We've heard about an X-Force movie and stuff, but we've gotten no solid script or anything.

Josh Brolin is the villain in two of the biggest movies this summer, both of which are Marvel properties at different studios. You said that you grew up watching superhero movies. Is there anything else out there? Anyone else you'd want to fight, you'd want to team up with?

I would obviously love to see if Firefist would team up with Korg or something. It's so confusing. There's so many people.

You can pretty much do anything at this point in superhero movies.

You don't even need a super power in a superhero movie. Zazie, Josh, and Ryan trained so hard. I just stand back and shoot these fireballs at people from a distance.

Even that need to be cinematically specific, though. How did you get trained to do those hand motions?

There was a lot of coordination. originally, I do a lot of like: I'm gathering up the energy and I'm moving it around, but then they simplified it. They wanted to make it more simple. Like he's just getting used to it.

They took the time to get ideas from the Haka like what the All Blacks [New Zealand’s national rugby team] do. Māori traditional war dance. It was super cool to be able to take a bit of home with me because the Haka is supposed to bring out range and power from your ancestors.

But Ryan and Josh, seriously, those are not fake muscles.

I've always wanted to be cast in a superhero movie so I am forced to work out.

That was super cool personally for me, because I remember watching the Avengers movies and the X-Men movies and stuff and you never really saw a bigger superhero, a chubbier superhero and I'm a chubby kid. I'm big and it was super cool that they were so open to change the character. Firefist Russell in the comics looks very different. Like he'd been molded out of clay and sent down from the heavens and then brought to life. Like the Amazons in Wonder Woman.

You say in the movie there are no plus-size superheroes.

"The industry discriminates."

And if there is a bigger character, then that's usually a part of the character.

And it has nothing to do with Russell, really. I remember when I got cast. Someone like Zazie's Domino, she looks very different from the comics. It's great. For me, it wasn't about physically looking the part, but bringing the essence of the character.

Are you excited to be known for something other than the Ricky Baker song from Wilderpeople?

Oh God yeah. The thing is about that is we were originally singing "Happy Birthday.”

Couldn't use that at the time, though.

Yeah! The producer came in. He's like, "We can't use that song. We don't have the money for it." So they made up that song in half an hour and then we sang it, and then about a month after the movie came out the “Happy Birthday” song became public domain.

Rima Te Wiata, who plays my foster mother, she's got the best laugh and it was so cool working with her because she was an opera singer, I think. And she has to do this weird song. The holiday after Hunt for the Wilderpeople came out, it got voted most annoying song of 2016.

Holy shit.

Should have been “Happy Birthday.”