Ryan Reynolds said his and wife Blake Lively’s upbringing was ‘very working class’ as he reflected on raising their family out of the spotlight.
The Deadpool star, 48, and Gossip Girl actor, 37, married in 2012 and share four children – James, 10, Inez, 8, Betty, 5 and Olin, 1.
The latest remarks come after a hectic year for the duo as Ryan jumped headfirst into promoting Marvel threequel Deadpool and Wolverine with co-star Hugh Jackman.
And Blake weathered a social media storm after the release It Ends With Us which she starred in with Justin Baldoni as the pair became the centre of intense feud rumours.
In a recent interview, Ryan opened up about the decision to keep their children away from the public eye, hoping to give them ‘as normal a life as possible’.
He continued: ‘I try not to impose upon them the difference in their childhood to my childhood or my wife’s childhood.
‘We both grew up very working class, and I remember when they were very young, I used to say or think, like, “Oh God, I would never have had a gift like this when I was a kid,” or, “I never would’ve had this luxury of getting takeout,” or whatever.
‘Then I realized that that’s not really their bag of rocks to carry.’
He went onto praise his children for being ‘in touch with gratitude’ and having a ‘strong sense of empathy’ which lead him to believe they are doing an ‘ok job’.
Adding to The Hollywood Reporter: ‘But yes, it’s different. When I was a kid, you would just suck it up, get out of the house and be back by sundown, which I just can’t even imagine now.’
The Canadian actor is the son of Vancouver couple Tammy and the late James “Jim” Chester Reynolds, as the youngest of four boys.
His father, who died in 2015, started his career as a police officer and later worked as a food broker.
Blake, however, hails from a more glamourous background as the daughter of Hollywood couple Ernie and Elaine Lively who both enjoyed successful careers in show business.
Blake’s breakout role was in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants in which her fictional dad was played by her real one.
In a 2006 interview, she said that she ‘grew up on sets’ thanks to her mum’s job as a talent manager (she also featured in 90s video game series Return to Zork) and the rest of her family’s involvement in the industry.
In fact, her brother Eric paved the path for her to get her first big break, as the star added: ‘He said, “I think you’re going to be an actress.” He [told] his agents, “You have to start sending Blake out on auditions.”
‘And I didn’t want to make him mad because he’s such a good brother, so I just went on auditions to appease him. And then after a few months of auditioning, I got Sisterhood.’
Meanwhile, Ernie, who died in 2015, has a career that spans over 50 years according to IMDb with his first acting credit in 1975 series The Waltons.
Across his 114 projects, he has also starred in Turner & Hooch, Murder, She Wrote and American Pie 2.
Both her siblings Eric and Robyn Lively have also followed their parents footsteps starring in films like The Karate Kid and Teen Witch,
Nevertheless, Blake herself has equated her and Ryan’s childhood’s before, in a 2020 interview with Marie Claire.
‘Ryan had a nice, normal upbringing, and we want our kids to have the same normal life that we had. We don’t ever want to rob them of what we had because then we’d feel really selfish,’ she told the publication at the time.
They are far from the only celebrity couple to make questionable claims about their background.
During the Beckham Netflix documentary, footballer David Beckham called his wife out for saying she had a working-class upbringing after making her confess her dad drove her to school in a Rolls-Royce.
And in recent years there has been a newly dubbed term – nepo baby – to call out people within the industry who may have had a helping hand thanks to their family connections.
Stars such as Lily Allen, Lily Rose-Depp, Lily Collins and Jack Quaid have all responded to the label.
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