Ryan Reynolds hopes his children “affect some positive change” in the world.
Ryan Reynolds
The 44-year-old actor has three daughters – James, six, Inez, four, and Betty, 22 months – with his wife Blake Lively, and has said he wants his brood to become “self-aware human beings” as they grow up.
He said: “I don’t even think of it as like I’m a girl dad. I love my kids. I want them to grow up to be self-aware human beings who affect some positive change somehow, some way in the world.”
Ryan is the youngest sibling in his own family, so had no experience with helping to raise children until he became a father.
And the ‘Free Guy’ star has said he was “worried” when Blake fell pregnant with the couple’s third child, as he was apprehensive about the possibility of having a baby boy after only knowing how to raise girls.
He added: “I was the youngest of four boys. I find doors to be a privilege. Like for the most part I was thrown through walls. I was a moving target. I was emergency harvestable organs. You name it. I was that as the youngest of four large strapping boys.
“I include my dad in that I was the youngest of five, because he was almost like a child at times. So, having girls … I don’t know anything else. Our last-born daughter, Betty, I was worried. I didn’t know. We didn’t know what the sex was going to be. So I was a little … what if I have a boy? What’s that going to be like?”
Ryan also spoke about his daughters’ names being used by family friend Taylor Swift in several of her songs, most notably the track ‘Betty’ from her 2020 album ‘Folklore’, which uses all three monikers.
The ‘Deadpool’ actor said he and his wife “trust” Taylor to be respectful with their children’s names.
Speaking during an appearance on ‘SiriusXM Town Hall’, he said: “The names are the names of our kids. We trust her implicitly. She’s very sensitive to any of that stuff. And obviously the song has nothing to do with our kids other than our kids’ names. But I mean, what an honour. We thought it was pretty damn amazing. We still do. You know, I still walk down the street and shake my head thinking ‘I can’t believe that happened.’ ”
He then jokingly added of his kids: “We surprised them with it. Yeah. They didn’t know. They had no idea. We don’t tell them anything, we find they’re most compliant if you offer them no access to outside information.”
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