'You don't finish a movie, you abandon it': Ryan Reynolds on letting go of perfection

Dubai: Ryan Reynolds has a blunt view of perfectionism. He calls it one of the worst diseases in modern culture, and he believes the habits that once made him anxious are the same ones that freed him from it.

The actor, producer and entrepreneur was speaking in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday at the inaugural Livability and Investment Exhibition, which runs from September 29 to October 1 at ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi. He was in conversation with Tyler Brûlé, Editorial Director and Chairman of Monocle, in a session titled Growth with Soul.

Reynolds made it clear early on that he doesn't think of himself as a traditional actor.

"You won't see me playing a 15th century Dutch impressionist in a movie, because I would laugh myself off that film set," he said. "But I do consider myself a storyteller."

On set, his mind is rarely on one thing. He described filming Deadpool behind a mask, opposite a friend he has known since 2007.

"I might be acting in a scene with a very subpar actor named Hugh Jackman," he joked. "I can also think, oh wow, we're missing that shot. That camera's in the wrong space. The sparks went off too early. The smoke behind me was late. I'm in like 50 places at once, which is why I'm not a pure actor. I am looking at the whole thing all at once."

He said he would sometimes love to focus on a single task. Still, he sees the way his mind works as a gift.

"It allows me to abandon what I think is one of the worst diseases in modern culture, which is perfectionism," Reynolds said.

As a father of four, he said he watches his own children walk a tightrope of perfectionism every day.

"We live in a world where you can't be good at something unless you're willing to be bad at it," he said.

Because he's spread across so many parts of a production, he explained, he isn't afraid to be bad at things. The trouble starts when he tries too hard to get something exactly right.

"You don't finish a movie or a book that you're writing. You abandon it. That is exactly what happens."

Reynolds credited his childhood, and the anxiety that came with it, for much of his creative instinct. He grew up the youngest of four boys.

"You're constantly jumping into the future, thinking, what's the threat? What could happen? You're inventing entire storylines, and all of this is actually a form of creativity."

When Brûlé brought up a joke about being handcuffed to the fridge, Reynolds said it was his brothers who were responsible. His father, he said, was the one he was always trying to predict.

"My dad wasn't, like, an abusive man, per se, but he was hard," he said. "It seemed like he didn't need or want kids. Yet he had four boys, and it was a tough house to grow up in."

He described meeting his father at the door each evening and trying to become whoever he thought his father wanted to see. That might mean remembering a Johnny Carson line his parents had laughed at the week before.

"I wouldn't show how I felt," he said. "Kids go through that, spouses go through that, siblings go through that."

That willingness to be imperfect carries into his writing. When pitching ideas to his co-writer, Reynolds often opens with "here's the bad version". He said this gives his partner permission to reject the idea and build something better from it.

He was just as dismissive of neat success stories.

"This isn't a TED talk," he said. "You intellectualise it later, you feel it in the moment."

Brûlé tied the idea to cities. He argued that the places people love most, such as the crowded side streets of Tokyo, are rarely the most polished. He recalled being asked once how a city could "create" serendipity, and said the question itself missed the point.

"You cannot lose, I think, the authenticity of what the place has," Brûlé said.