13-05-2025
Ryan Reynolds worried he'd go to jail over prank on 'Just Friends' set: 'I got in trouble'
Ryan Reynolds once worried he was going from "just friends" to "just cellmates."
Reynolds shared the comical memory from his time making the 2005 comedy Just Friends during an appearance on the latest episode of SiriusXM's Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast.
The Deadpool star told O'Brien that the film, which also starred Anna Faris and Amy Smart, was filmed in Regina, Saskatchewan.
"It's one of my few times that I've ever been scared of going to jail, because we, just as a joke, me and the art department, we made a sign that would go over, it would snap over the 'Welcome to Regina' sign," he recalled. "And it just said, 'Welcome to Regina, which rhymes with fun.' And I got in trouble, though."
After O'Brien and his podcast team stopped laughing at this story, he asked his guest, "You got in trouble?"
Luckily for Reynolds and the film's art department, the town's officials had a sense of humor about it.
"They thought it was funny because it snapped off," Reynolds replied. "So at first it was vandalism, and then it was class."
Joked O'Brien: "Then it was an art installment that could come down."
Directed by Roger Kumble and written by Adam "Tex" Davis, Just Friends follows Chris Brander (Reynolds), a formerly overweight nerdy high school student who is secretly in love with his popular best friend, Jamie Palamino (Smart), who has put him firmly in the friend zone. As adults, Chris — who's now a successful record producer (and shameless womanizer) — tries to win her over when the two reconnect when he visits his hometown for is known for his on-set pranks such as this one. Just ask Hugh Jackman, with whom Reynolds has been in a prank war of sorts since at least 2015. A highlight includes the time Reynolds hit Jackman's film The Front Runner with a fake awards season attack ad. In the spirit of the movie, in which Jackman plays 1988 presidential campaign frontrunner Gary Hart as he's swept up in a scandal, Reynolds decided to post the fake hit ad against his longtime X-Men buddy to dissuade "some people" from giving him awards.
He and wife Blake Lively also frequently troll each other publicly on social media, often with dueling embarrassing photos or jokes.
For more with Reynolds and O'Brien, watch the full conversation in the video above.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
