Ryan Reynolds on John Candy’s prideful vulnerability
Ryan Reynolds reflects on John Candy’s mix of pride and vulnerability in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” The actor produces “John Candy: I Like Me.”
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TORONTO – Most kids don’t get to go to work with their dad and hang out with John Candy. Colin Hanks was lucky in that regard.
As a 5-year-old visiting his father, Tom Hanks, on the set of the 1984 comedy “Splash,” he met Candy and was taken immediately by the Canadian comedian’s warmth. “He had this innate gift of making you feel important and feel special,” Colin Hanks says. “That even as a kid, your opinion mattered. That your emotions mattered. That you mattered.”
It’s that gentle, complex man and beloved film icon whose story is told in the new documentary “John Candy: I Like Me” (streaming Oct. 10 on Prime Video), directed by Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds. The movie charts Candy’s rise from being part of the improv comedy troupe The Second City in his hometown of Toronto in the 1970s to his stardom in the 1980s with movies like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and “Uncle Buck.”
“I Like Me” explores Candy’s personal struggles, from the anxiety he dealt with throughout his life after losing his dad at age 5 to being a big guy in a looks-obsessed industry. And interviews with former costars like Bill Murray, Steve Martin and Macaulay Culkin give new context to Candy’s most famous roles and scenes.
“I have such a greater appreciation for him as a performer now, how adept he was at being able to convey things in such a simplistic manner that was just so genuine and real and honest,” Reynolds says.
Growing up in Vancouver, Reynolds was a fan of the “SCTV” sketch comedy show – a sort of Canadian “Saturday Night Live” – that launched the careers of Candy as well as Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis and Martin Short. “These are the people I studied. I watched these guys one inch from the TV,” Reynolds says. But Candy was always special for the actor, especially his “Planes, Trains” character Del Griffith.
“He would find that part of himself, the dad or the lost soul that is insecure and just wants to feel part of something,” Reynolds says of Candy. “My brother’s very vulnerable and I remember him saying once, ‘I just want to have something.’ This is when I was working at Safeway grocery store, and I remember thinking, ‘God, if I could ever give him something, I would like to be able to do that.’ Because he just wanted something of his own and couldn’t find his place. And I feel that’s in Del a little bit.”
Revisiting their father’s movies for “I Like Me” has also been a joy for co-executive producers Jennifer Candy-Sullivan and Chris Candy. Their dad died of a heart attack at age 43 in 1994 when they were 13 and 8, respectively.
Candy-Sullivan still loves watching the scene in “Uncle Buck” when her father’s title character eviscerates an assistant principal who insulted his niece and a little boy nearby reacts hilariously to the takedown. “All of his reactions are authentic because he had never seen or heard our dad do that scene yet,” she says during an interview with her brother in The Second City’s John Candy Box Theatre.
And Chris Candy enjoyed Tom Hanks describing his dad’s “collaborative” spirit for a key “Splash” scene: “I saw the connectivity between the improv and that methodology and acting.”
John Candy had conflicted feelings about some of his well-known works, too. Murray tells a story in the documentary of how his “Stripes” costar felt somewhat uncomfortable doing one of the movie’s signature scenes where his Army recruit Ox mud-wrestles strippers and winds up with their bikini tops in his hands.
Hearing that made Candy-Sullivan flash back to their basement when living in Canada where John Candy displayed pictures from “Stripes,” including that scene. She wonders how he reconciled constantly reliving the moment with being proud enough of the movie to place it “prominently where family gathered,” she says. “It’s that kind of weird conundrum.”
After John Candy’s death, it took the siblings a while to be able to view their dad’s movies, especially the posthumous releases “Canadian Bacon” and “Wagons East.” Candy-Sullivan “couldn’t get myself to watch” the latter for years because the film had to be finished after his death, she says. “But as time went on, his roles were so strong and the love was felt so much in those characters that when you watch them, it was cathartic. It felt really nice to see him back, walking and talking.”
All of John Candy’s characters were “very much avenues of who he was,” says Chris Candy, whose favorite movie of his dad’s is “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” He calls it “the masterclass of comedy.”
Candy-Sullivan allows that she “waffles” depending on the day or mood when it comes to her top choice. As much as she likes her dad in “JFK” (“He’s so different”), her current fave is “Summer Rental” because of “the frustration and the love and the absurdity” of a family vacation combined with “the way that he talks to his kids and interacts with people and fights for justice,” she says. “I like watching that movie because I see a lot of him in it.”