Gerard Butler Shades Ryan Reynolds, But the ‘Deadpool’ Star Has the Perfect Response

Ryan Reynolds continues to prove that he’s one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. While promoting his new movie Copshop in a new interview with UNILAD, actor Gerard Butler was asked about a movie that he made back in 2009, a sci-fi thriller about being Inside a videogame called Gamer. “I was hoping it was of the time, that people would get it. I thought it was genius. It could have been executed slightly differently, but I really loved the commentary it was making on where the world was going, especially in gaming and sort of losing ourselves into that world, and technology and man bonding with machine,” Butler said. “But, I didn’t feel people really did get it at the time. It didn’t do amazing business. It has become a bit of a cult classic, but I didn’t know about this resurgence.” 

Butler was then asked about Free Guy, a recent movie about being inside a videogame that is one of the biggest hits of 2021. “I actually don’t know what Free Guy is,” Butler responded before his costar Alexis Louder informed him that it was Ryan Reynold’s latest movie. “Oh s— is it,” Butler said. “I don’t watch Ryan Reynolds movies.”

While some could have taken this slight on the chin, Reynolds decided to use it to promote his latest do-gooder effort. Reynolds and his wife, actress Blake Lively, pledged to match donations to the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund up to $1,000,000 on Tuesday. The fundraiser is running through Oct. 8. 

“Can you believe Gerard Butler doesn’t know what Free Guy is?” Reynolds wrote on Instagram. “Also, can you believe that the challenges to democracy have never been greater and that Blake and I will match your contributions to the [ACLU] and the [NAACPLDF]? *Order of these questions optimized for the Internet, NOT importance.” So far, Butler has not responded to the Deadpool star’s post.

Reynolds has been open about how he thinks Free Guy is the best film he’s ever made, so it makes sense that he would defend it even beyond the philanthropic reasons. “I do think it’s the best movie-making experience that I’ve ever had, easily, but also the best movie I’ve ever done,” Reynolds said in an interview with director Shawn Levy. “It’s the most pertinent to our times, in that sense. Where I feel Deadpool was a movie that was pertinent to the comic book culture when it came out, this really to me speaks in a broader spectrum of where we are in the world and how we are in the world.”