In the "Friend Zone" with Ryan Reynolds

OMG! Is that handsome actor Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder, The Amityville Horror, Blade Trinity) as the really large, round-faced guy on the Just Friends movie poster? Talk about the magic of modern make-up effects! Ryan, who is super charming and really funny in person, admits that his fat-suit experience in the new romantic comedy was torture but also educational for him as he played an overweight highschooler in the first part of the new film.

For our sit down in Beverly Hills, Reynolds looked a bit like the GQ version of a buff lumberjack in plaid shirt over tee, dark brown sweater, jeans and with a full beard and spiky hair. The actor spilled his feelings on fat suit torture, doing the action scenes in Just Friends, his taste in music, working with wacky actress Anna Faris, who plays a demented pop star in the film, and his own experience with a girl he lusted after in high school who wanted to stay "just friends" with him. I'm sure we can all relate to that on some level. Let's join Ryan in the "Friend Zone" where he'll give us some great advice on relationships...

TeenHollywood: Okay, you chose to wear the fat suit rather than gain a lot of weight yourself?

Ryan: Yeah, I know. It's because I'm not committed to my craft. Because it's really hard to lose 45 pounds in an hour without cutting an actual limb off. So yeah, no, it was a labor of love though. I loved wearing that suit.

TeenHollywood: Did you feel different in it?

Ryan: Yeah. It felt great to experiment in that world of being a young, kind of semi-pubescent high schooler again because that is such a scary, wounding time and it was great to reclaim it a little bit as that character and wear my heart on my sleeve and be vulnerable and be sensitive, be everything that the future Chris Brander [his character] isn't. Those kind of guys are out there and they're players and they're a little bit smarmy maybe. I have a lot of compassion for those guys because they're just trying to avoid intimacy because they've been hurt. A lot of people are like that. I actually wished I could have done the whole movie in that suit. I would love to do that.

TeenHollywood: Did you go out in public in it?

Ryan: Yeah, a little bit. Whoever created the suit made it out of molten lava so I had to go outside all the time to just cool off because it was so, so hot. I remember I was standing outside and I was looking up at the set, the house. It was minus 40 out. We were shooting with sled dogs like in the arctic and I remember staring up at the house and this woman came up to me and asked me if Ryan Reynolds was inside. 'You have no idea, my dear. He's inside all right'.

TeenHollywood: What was your 'Just Friends' experience? Seems like everybody has one.

Ryan: Well, I got a few of them. Yael in high school, this girl Yael, I was absolutely head over heels in love with her. God, I was so in love with her but I was in the friend zone forever. Forever.

TeenHollywood: Did she know how you felt?

Ryan: I think she has an idea. Everyone was in love with her, so I was like her buddy buddy and it was hard. It was hard watching her date other guys that were just dirt bags. And I relate to this character when he was in high school because I was very sensitive in high school and I was a lot more honest outwardly with people than I have been in my 20s. You get crushed, you get wounded a little bit and you learn how to not do that anymore. And then hopefully once you get married and you want to be intimate with somebody and emotionally intimate, you try to unlearn all that s*** that you've been defending against.

TeenHollywood: Is there any real solution to being 'best friended'?

Ryan: Wow, only murder. No, I don't know. There's a way out. Eventually you say what you feel. My current relationship, [with his fiancé, songstress Alanis Morissette] we were friends for a long time. It wasn't until I really kind of started to take a few emotional risks and tell her what was up that I actually got anywhere. So before that, I was just the funny guy that did movies or whatever. Then suddenly I made headway when I was more vulnerable.

TeenHollywood: How did you broach that to the "You Oughta Know" girl?

Ryan: Well, I certainly didn't call her that, the 'You Oughta Know' girl. But she's a person. She's a sensitive girl at heart. You just tell her how you feel. The kicking people in the shin and running away thing stopped working for me by the time I was 24. It's also a great way to get a lawsuit. For someone that's really in their skin, I think the best way to get through to them is to be honest, believe it or not. So it was kind of a life lesson.

TeenHollywood: How was working with Anna Faris as the wacky popstar in the movie? She was hilarious.

Ryan: The Britney Simpson, Jessica Lohan Hilton character? Jesus, she's amazing. It was just so great to play with somebody who could handle anything. That girl has such great comedic timing and great comedic chops. It was really, really wonderful to just go to set and just be able to do anything and know that she will roll with it. She will not break character no matter what. Nor will she laugh no matter what. I wish I could say the same for me so she's really something special. Just kind of a young Goldie Hawn to me, just that beautiful girl that's willing to risk it all and just go for it. I loved Anna Faris. I loved that character too.

TeenHollywood: We hear that you cracked up Amy Smart when you are freaking out and jumping around in your car and she is trying to silently watch you through the car window.

Ryan: There was one take where she laughed. I don't know if that's in the movie. I actually just hurt myself doing that a couple of times. I think it was just straining every muscle. I felt like I'd been in a car accident by the end.

TeenHollywood: You and your brother in the film are always fighting and punching each other but there is love there. Do you fight with your brothers?

Ryan: Physically, yes. Not so much verbally anymore because there's just no sense in trying to talk my way out of the slapping. My brothers and I, that's where that started too. That was totally inspired by our dinner table so this was so close to home. My brothers and I, we would slap each other so hard or kick each other under the table, and if one of us tattled to my parents, you're dead later but all three of my older brothers would come and just lay it down. It was terrible.

TeenHollywood: There are some stunts in this film. Did anyone get hurt?

Ryan: People got hurt. It was so funny because I'd just come off Blade and Amityville and I got way more hurt in this movie than I did on either of those. I separated my shoulder the first day of shooting doing the hockey stuff. I'm really just not a great Canadian. We're born with these things. Why would you strap steak knives to your feet and try to [skate on them]? The stunt guy who was there responsible for my safety basically, wouldn't put my shoulder back in. He was like, "Ewww, Oh god, no. Oh god, no." I was like, "You're a stunt guy!" And I think Anna cut her finger damn near off doing something. Everybody got a few bumps and bruises. But, I can say that I had more fun on this movie than I've had on any movie ever.

TeenHollywood: Where did you grow up in Canada?

Ryan: Vancouver.

TeenHollywood: And you shot this film in Regina, Saskatchewan?

Ryan: Yeah. My brother is a Mountie so he spent six months there. But he spent six months there in the beautiful summer where it's nice and lovely. But I'd never experienced cold like that. I didn't know you could pee slush. You can. It was minus 45 the day we arrived and wow, that wind whips through you can see your soul visibly leaving your body. It's unbelievable.

TeenHollywood: When you go back home, do you fall back into high school persona?

Ryan: No, but I carry that time around with me. I don't know if everyone else does but I certainly do. I always have that thought of 'what if I run into one of the 10 bullies'? That'd be great just to say how I feel and then thank them because truthfully, everything "bad" that happens to you, all those bad things are formative. They make up who you are and that's how we cultivate personalities. I think inevitably I'm kind of grateful for any kind of strife I went through in high school but it was not a fun time for me. I don't know why, but I went to a few high schools. The first school I was at I had a couple bullies that were so bad that my dad was kind enough to pull me out of the high school and I went to a different one that was thankfully much better, but it's not a fun time.

TeenHollywood: Were you looking for a comedy after Amity?

Ryan: Yeah, I was definitely looking for something that was light and fun and I knew that, after Just Friends, I had two more serious movies to do so I was excited to just do something where you could let it all hang out and have a blast, and just be with some great comedic actors.

TeenHollywood: Is it hard to go through that transition?

Ryan: Yeah. Amityville was serious but also it's a horror movie, so to me they're always a little tongue-in-cheek. The movie I'm doing right now, I would have more trouble going right to a comedy, so anything that's just dramatic is difficult.

TeenHollywood: And that film is?

Ryan: It's a movie called Smoking Aces and it's [director] Joe Carnahan's follow-up to the movie Narc which I really love. He's a genius. He's got a real visual sense and also some of the best dialogue I've ever heard. It's a really gritty movie. I literally have blood still on my hands from shooting last night that I can't get off. I've had rubbing alcohol up in my little room up there trying to get it off my fingers.

TeenHollywood: Weren't you going to do a movie about The Flash?

Ryan: It's still being developed. It's such a big movie that who knows. It depends on so many factors but that thing's $100 million plus. I'm still talking about it so who knows? After 'Smoking', I start a movie called Chaos Theory that's a little more drama but tongue in cheek comedy too. It's about a guy who has a seven year old daughter and got married very young. His wife thinks he's cheating on her and moreover thinks that he had a baby with another woman. So he goes and gets a DNA test and finds out that he's completely sterile and always has been. So he goes to his wife and goes, 'Who's the father of our baby?' He has a bit of a breakdown.

TeenHollywood: Well, that would be upsetting. On a lighter note, what kind of music do you like to listen to?

Ryan: I love everything. God I'm such a loser. I just discovered The Rolling Stones. I think it'll catch on. I really like it. And I'm listening to a band called The Damnwells which I think is really, really beautiful. It's such a great discovery.

TeenHollywood: What makes you laugh?

Ryan: I love 'The Daily Show'. That show just cracks me up. In terms of big comedians, I've always been a big Steve Martin fan. At a young age, my brother introduced me to Jack Benny who I thought was just the king of timing. Anyone that can hold it that long on radio and then say "I'm thinking it over" is pretty frigging all right by my standards, but those guys make me laugh. Will Arnett, that guy just goes for it and I think he's somebody we're going to see a lot of hopefully. And Anna Faris. Wow, that's the hardest person I've ever worked with just trying to keep a straight face.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.