Acting is not an easy job, although it might look like it for those who have never tried it. And Ryan Reynolds knows this first hand, as a small incident on the set of 2012’s Safe House really made Denzel Washington break character during an emotional scene.
In the early 2010s, right after his first superhero movie, 2011’s Green Lantern, bombed in theaters, Reynolds was working hard to shift his career away from rom-coms and into action-thriller territory. In 2012, he worked with Washington for the first time on the thriller Safe House. During an interview at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where he premiered the documentary John Candy: I Like Me, the actor recalled how he nearly derailed Washington’s big death scene at the end of the thriller, per Collider.
The actor recalled that, when shooting the original scene, his phone started ringing, interrupting Washington’s performance. Reynolds continued that no one knew it was his phone, and that he played along after seeing how intimidating Washington was.
“I’m really, really scared, because he’s Denzel Washington, and I’m me! I’m terrified. The great thing is [my] character’s terrified, so it’s no problem.” The actor also highlighted that Washington had only spoken “two words” to him while filming because of his method approach.
The Deadpool star continued, “It’s the last scene of the movie, [Washington is] dying on the floor. It’s a powerful scene; he’s crying.” Reynolds added, “With this guy, with an emotional scene, you get it twice. You get it once, and then you get it twice. The second time, if you f— up, that’s on you, it’s not going to be on him, and he’s leaving, so you better get it!”
However, they did have to do it more than twice. During the scene, with multiple dead stunt men around, and Washington in character, “suddenly you hear — and this is take two, by the way, because take one there was a technical problem — we hear [Frank Sinatra singing] ‘Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away,’” Reynolds recalled, singing his old ringtone. “Dumb-dumb is sitting on his phone. I’m dumb-dumb in this story. And I can feel everybody looking around like, what the f— is happening right now? I can see Denzel with a tear in his eye.”
Reynolds recalled director Daniel Espinosa shouted “Who the f—‘s phone is that?” immediately followed by the assistant director, echoed by Washington immediately after as he broke character. Reynolds revealed he didn’t admit it was his phone, and echoed the same anger.
Eventually, Washington had to do a third take, and Reynolds joked it was his fault. “He was like, ‘We’re going to have to, aren’t we?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, [because of] the stuntmen!’ “
Safe House Had an Underwhelming Reception
Image via Universal Pictures
The action thriller followed Reynolds’ rookie CIA agent Matt Weston, who gets a chance to prove himself when he has to guard a turncoat operative, Washington’s Tobin Frost, in a safe house, and keep him alive after the place gets attacked. The cast included Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepard, Rubén Blades, Nora Arnezeder and Robert Patrick.
Safe House had an underwhelming reception, earning a “rotten” score of 52% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and an unimpressive but positive 63% rating from the audience. It grossed $207.8 million worldwide just shy of profit considering its $85 million production budget. However, the thriller found redemption on streaming, as the action thriller recently found new success on Netflix.
Safe House is streaming on Tubi.
A split on the poster for Safe House (2012) depicts Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) holding a gun on one side and a close-up of Tobin Frost’s (Denzel Washington) face on the other.
Image via Universal Pictures
Release Date
February 7, 2012
Runtime
115 Minutes
Director
Daniel Espinosa
Writers
David Guggenheim
