Actor Ryan Reynolds. Photo: AMY SUSSMAN / GETTY / AFP
By Max Matza for the BBC
Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds is the latest celebrity to make bank through savvy investments that are a world away from his onscreen acting performances.
The Canadian actor is set to rake in over NZ$483 million (£248m) after a telecoms firm in the US offered to buy a smaller phone network that he owns a stake in.
The co-owner of Welsh football team Wrexham AFC also sold a gin brand he co-owned in 2020 for a reported US$610m (NZ$977m).
He also still appears in films as one of the highest-paid actors worldwide.
The Deadpool star is expected to see a major payday after T-Mobile, the second largest mobile phone carrier in the US, agreed to purchase a company that Reynolds has invested in.
Reynolds owns a reported 25 percent of budget telecoms firm Mint Mobile, which is included in the US$1.35bn deal with T-Mobile.
"We are so happy T-Mobile beat out an aggressive last-minute bid from my mom Tammy Reynolds," he joked in a press release announcing the sale.
The Detective Pikachu and Green Lantern A-lister has been actively involved in Mint's advertising campaigns through his firm Maximum Effort.
Maximum Effort has also created ads for Peloton, as well as his gin brand, Aviation American Gin, which he sold to spirits giant Diageo in 2020.
In a recent interview for the Wall Street Journal, he described the company's work as "fastvertising" - aiming to create short viral adverts.
"Everything we do is scrappy. It's fast, it's inexpensive, character over spectacle," he said.
Reynolds began his acting career in the 1990s and has starred in films like Deadpool 2, Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, The Adam Project and Free Guy.
He was the second highest-paid actor in the world in 2020, according to Forbes, regularly making over US$20m per film, coming in behind Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
In a 2018 interview on daytime chat show Live with Kelly and Michael, he recalled his first acting gig in 1991 as a teenager with a side job delivering newspapers.
He said that the role paid $150.
"For me, I thought I was like a gajillionaire," Reynolds said. "For a 150 bucks a day it was like a dream come true."
In 2021 he bought Wrexham United AFC with Rob McElhenney, the co-creator of long-running cult comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in a deal worth US$2.5m.
The pair went on to create a documentary series about the team titled Welcome to Wrexham.
In the past few years, rumours have swirled that he may seek to buy the Ottawa Senators hockey team.
Reynolds is one of many celebrities investing in non-acting projects.
Ashton Kutcher famously owns a venture capital firm with stakes in Uber, Skype and Airbnb. Snoop Dogg and Jared Leto are both investors in Reddit, to name just a few examples.
Despite his fortune, Reynolds continues to act. He is due to star in Deadpool 3 alongside actor Hugh Jackman playing the role of Wolverine next year.
- BBC
