Ryan Reynolds

He doesn't care if a movie is "art," or possibly even if a script is good. It doesn't matter, because he'll make it good. He'll make it relatable and engaging and meaningful. He'll make you care about Pikachu's relationship with Justice Smith, or the fate of a fifth-division soccer team in Wales, for that matter. Ryan Reynolds brings Maximum Effort to every role, and that's what makes him — and everything he's in — great.

—Chris Dart, "Why Ryan Reynolds just makes movies better"

Ryan Reynolds is a Canadian actor who is most recognizable as the eponymous Van Wilder, the role which cemented his dual trademarks of adept comic timing and weirdly charming cockiness, made him a big star and almost fatally typecast him. More recently, he got to branch out a bit in big films as Wade Wilson/Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern film. Unfortunately, neither role did his career much good. Fortunately, his 2016 recreation of Deadpool in the film of the same name more than made up for them -- and in its 2018 sequel he let everyone know what he thought of them.

In his lesser known work, he's also proven himself an exceedingly fine dramatic actor who can turn off the familiar sardonic persona.

He has been named one the sexiest men alive by People magazine on several occasions, and was on the top position for their 2010's list.

He was awarded the National Arts Centre Award in 2021 -- one of the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards, the foremost performing arts awards in Canada.

Sometimes he contributes to the Huffington Post. He's also the owner of and spokesman for Aviation Gin.

Filmography:

Ryan Reynolds provides examples of the following tropes:

Alliterative Name: Ryan Rodney Reynolds.
Canada, Eh?
Deadpan Snarker: If he isn't saying something sarcastic and witty, its a pretty good sign that shit just got real.
Estrogen Brigade Bait
Fake American: Almost every role he plays is this. Most people don't realize he's Canadian.
Handsome Lech
The Irish Diaspora: Reynolds is an Irish name.
Mean Character, Nice Actor: While it might be stretching a point to call Deadpool simply "mean", Ryan Reynolds is definitely nice - in 2020, he started the Group Effort Initiative to get more non-whites onto movie sets, and made a sizable donation of cold-weather clothing to a school that needed it, paying for both out of his own pocket.
One of Us: Reynolds is a big fan of Deadpool. He also auditioned for every comic book character that existed until he finally landed a role (and luck behold, he's now the iconic Hal Jordan/Green Lantern).
Playing Against Type: Quite a few of his roles, such as Buried and The Amityville Horror. He can be pretty damn scary when he wants to be.
Promoted Fanboy: Subverted, he wasn't into comics until relatively recently, in which case he became a fanboy, roughly the same time he actually started playing comic book characters. In fact the only reason he became a fan of Deadpool is after being compared to him by Deadpool himself.
Written by Cast Member: He co-wrote Deadpool 2.