‘The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard’ Director Talks ‘Joy’ in Hurting Ryan Reynolds (Exclusive)

Ryan Reynolds takes quite a beating in The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s sequel film The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard— which hit theaters today — and the director, Patrick Hughes, jokes he finds “joy” in making Reynolds the punching bag. Reynolds is quite the stud, but for Hughes, it’s been a fun process covering the pretty boy on set with scars and bruises. During an interview with PopCulture, Hughes didn’t hold back on revealing his enthusiasm.

“Do you realize the joy I have in hurting Ryan on a daily basis!” he said with a smile on his face. “Like, everyday he walks up and says, ‘Hey what are we gonna do today?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna shoot you with a shotgun, and you’re gonna fly through that wall, you’re gonna hit all that glass, you’re gonna roll out and you’re gonna have cuts because all the glass is all over your face. He’s like, ‘Oh great.’”

Reynolds’ character, Michael Bryce, finds himself in the middle of a mission involving Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek) and Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson), as they all fight for survival; however, it seems as though Bryce can’t seem to escape injury. With a bit of a Deadpool vibe, it’s hard not to laugh at the beating Reynolds takes, providing comical relief, along with Hayek’s feisty character. “[He’s] like, ‘What are we doing today?’ [and I’m like] ‘I’m gonna hit you with that car, I’m gonna throw you in that river!’ Hughes said as he laughed. It’s obvious Hughes has a lot of fun with Reynolds on set and together the two make a great team to push out a fabulous product.

“He walks around set in his tattered suit with all these cuts and bruises and all these things, right? And he just looks like a degenerate person with gambling debts, and it’s like, ‘Yeah, wow, aren’t you supposed to be some handsome leading man, ’cause right now you don’t look it, Ryan!” the director joked. While Hughes jokes about having zero sympathy for the 44-year-old, his co-star Hayek says she did feel bad for having to hit him so many times on set, but joked that the “noise” that came out of him was hilarious each time he took a slap to the face.

“I slapped him a couple of times, that was really hard,” Hayek admitted before noting that it also hurt her hand too. “I did feel very bad because they told me, ‘You can hit him everywhere except the glasses’ and I hit exactly the glasses! And I knew that hurt, but it hurt me too by the way,” she mentioned as she chuckled. “But the noise that came out of him was so not even human and his reaction was so funny,” she recalled. There is one scene where the two are in a car together and she said during that one she did have to hit him several times to get the perfect take, but all-in-all gushed over her co-stars. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is now in theaters.