“I’m Going to Die:” Ryan Reynolds Bluntly Shares His Struggles With Anxiety and How He Manages It

Ryan Reynolds opened up about how he has been dealing with anxiety all his life, despite it not showing when he’s being his bubbly self in public. In an interview, he revealed personal details about his struggles and how his wife, Blake Lively, is there for him through it all.

His mental health is a “work in progress.”

Although people might often assume celebrities have everything in their lives figured out, this rarely is the case. Like everyone else, they’re humans who deal with issues others with more private lives have to go through. Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds is one of them, and in an interview, he decided to get real about how he, too, finds himself “spinning out of control” sometimes.

In Reynolds’ case, anxiety bothers him quite a bit, even though he has his “own little rituals” to “help [him] stay grounded,” like meditation. “I tend to overbook myself when I’m spiraling that way,” the 46-year-old actor admitted. “I’m sort of aware of that stuff, and I manage it as well as you can.”

His anxiety started at a very young age.

Reynolds has been an anxious person for as long as he can remember. However, he thinks his dad influenced how demanding he is with himself nowadays.

“[My] father was tough. He wasn’t easy on anyone. And he wasn’t easy on himself,” Reynolds revealed in an interview. “I think the anxiety might have started there, trying 
to find ways to control others by trying to control myself. At the time, I never recognized that. I was just a twitchy kid.”

His true self isn’t exactly like his public persona.

“I feel like I have two parts of my personality, that one takes over when that [anxiety] happens,” Reynolds admitted in a 2022 interview. He then explained how he feels when he has to do public appearances, particularly interviews on talk shows.

“When I would go out on, like, [David] Letterman [show] back in the day, I was nervous. But I remember I’d be standing backstage before the curtain would open, and I would think to myself, ‘I’m gonna die. I’m literally gonna die here. The curtain’s gonna open, and (...) something horrible’s gonna happen!” he admitted.

“But as soon as that curtain opens — and this happens in my work a lot, too — it’s like this little guy takes over. And he’s like, ‘I got this. You’re cool.’ I feel, like, my heart rate drops, and my breathing calms, and I just sort of go out, and I’m this different person. And I leave that interview going, ‘God, I’d love to be that guy!’”

His wife keeps him “sane”.

Reynolds first met Blake Lively on the set of Green Lantern in 2010 but only became romantically involved one year later. She quickly became an important part of his life, and the two got married shortly after, in 2012.

Now, Blake Lively is always there for him and is especially important when it comes to keeping him calm. “Blake helped me through it,” the actor said. “I’m lucky to have her around just to keep me sane.”

Blake herself once pointed out that their lives aren’t “perfect,” like everyone thinks. “My husband and I are really shy people who express ourselves best when we’re acting when we’re hiding as someone else,” Lively explained in an interview. “So the fact that very shy people have to share that shy person with the world — and are sometimes hurt by it — it’s very weird emotionally.”

Ryan Reynolds isn’t solo in his journey of being 100% honest about his personal experiences, whether positive or negative. The Devil Wears Prada star Anne Hathaway got real about her postpartum recovery and cleared up misconceptions about life post-pregnancy.