Matthew Lawrence claims a “young” Ryan Reynolds was difficult to work with in the early aughts.
The “Boy Meets World” alum alleged on his “Brotherly Love Podcast” that the “Deadpool & Wolverine” star had disputes with producers and the director for their 2000 film, “Boltneck,” over creative differences.
“He’d walk out — just kind of wanted to do his thing and the producers would get really upset,” Lawrence, 45, claimed in the episode.
“They even told him, ‘Ryan, this is a bad Jim Carrey impersonation. This is not what we hired you to do. You can’t impersonate somebody, you gotta do your own thing.’”
The “Mrs. Doubtfire” star claimed Reynolds, 48, “got upset” over the producers’ criticism and told them in response, “I’m doing my thing.”
In “Boltneck,” Lawrence played a “science nerd” named Frank Stein, who revives Reynolds’ character’s corpse after he’s killed by a pair of bullies. He claimed the producers wanted the film to mirror a sci-fi thriller like “Donnie Darko” but Reynolds was “trying to ‘Deadpool’” the script.
“There was this major pull between one of the lead actors … so that is what my experience with Ryan Reynolds was,” the “Hot Chick” actor added. “He obviously matured as a human being.”
Lawrence also shared during that story that he was “privy to a meeting between the director” and Reynolds, and added, “This crew, I think, had just been nominated for an Oscar, so they were kind of a big deal at that moment. Talk about frustrations on set with actors.”
According to IMDb, “Boltneck” was produced by Paul Colichman and Mark R. Harris, who both worked on “Gods and Monsters,” which won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay in 1999.
Lawrence claimed the crew wrote off Reynolds due to his alleged behavior, saying, “So much hope for this guy. He’s going nowhere,” which the “Brotherly Love” alum laughed off given the latter’s career rise.
He concluded, “They blamed that movie not working on him because they said there was this whole conflict.”
Page Six has reached out to Reynolds’ reps for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Lawrence recounted his experience while covering Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s ongoing legal battle — in which Reynolds has allegedly played a major role.
Baldoni, 41, has sued the “Green Lantern” star, as well as Lively, for defamation and extortion, after the married couple accused him of sexual harassment and other egregious claims in a California Civil Rights Department complaint and subsequent lawsuit.
The actor-director alleged in his complaint that Reynolds aggressively shouted at him after he inquired about Lively’s weight while filming “It Ends With Us.” Baldoni has denied the “fat-shaming” claims.
He has also slammed Reynolds and Lively for re-writing a pivotal rooftop scene, and accused the couple of trying to take over production of the drama, which he and his company, Wayfarer Studios, optioned from Colleen Hoover to turn her novel into a film.
In his lawsuit, Baldoni claimed he “felt obliged to text Lively to say that he had liked her pages and hadn’t needed Reynolds and her megacelebrity friend [Taylor Swift] to pressure him.”
“The message could not have been clearer. Baldoni was not just dealing with Lively. He was also facing Lively’s ‘dragons,’ two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world, who were not afraid to make things very difficult for him.”
Lively, 37, has acknowledged in the past that she, too, likes to overstep her boundaries on set.
She revealed at a Forbes Power Women’s Summit in 2022, which resurfaced amid her feud with Baldoni, “When I went into meetings, I would just seem like I’m just there to be the actor and ready to get the gig. I wouldn’t reveal that I actually need to have authorship in order to feel fulfilled.
“So I think that for them, sometimes that might have felt like a rug pulled because you’re like, you’re trying to assert yourself into something that we didn’t hire you to do.”
However, the “Gossip Girl” alum has claimed that Baldoni’s suit is just retaliation for her speaking out about his alleged harassment, calling it “another chapter in the abuser playbook.”
A trial date for Lively and Baldoni’s consolidated cases has been set for March 9, 2026. All parties declined to move forward with mediation.
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