- By Max Matza
- BBC News, Seattle
image source, Getty Images
Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds is the latest celebrity to bank through savvy investments that are a world away from his on-screen acting chops.
The Canadian actor is set to pocket more than $300m (£248m) after a US telco offered to buy a smaller phone network in which he owns a stake.
The co-owner of Welsh soccer team Wrexham AFC also sold a gin brand he co-owned in 2020 for a reported $610m.
He is also still appearing in films as one of the highest paid actors worldwide.
The Deadpool star is expected to see a big payday after T-Mobile, the second largest mobile phone carrier in the US, agreed to buy a company in which Reynolds has invested.
Reynolds owns 25% of budget telco Mint Mobile, which is included in the $1.35 billion deal with T-Mobile.
“We are so pleased that T-Mobile made a last minute aggressive bid from my mother Tammy Reynolds,” he joked in a news release announcing the sale.
Detective Pikachu and Green Lantern A-listers have been actively involved in Mint’s advertising campaigns through his company Maximum Effort.
Maximum Effort has also done 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 with the Wall Street Journal, he described the company’s work as “quick advertising” — aimed at creating short viral ads.
“Everything we do is scratch. It’s fast, it’s cheap, character over spectacle,” he said.
Watch: King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla met Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney at Wrexham pitch
Reynolds began his acting career in the 1990s and has appeared in films such as 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 earning over $20 million per film, coming in behind Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
In a 2018 interview on the 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 the role paid $150.
“For me, I thought I was like a gajillionaire,” Reynolds said. “At $150 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 $2.5m.
The pair went on to create a documentary series about the team entitled Welcome to Wrexham.
For the past few years, rumors have swirled that he may seek to buy the Ottawa Senators hockey team.
Reynolds is one of many celebrities investing in non-acting ventures.
Ashton Kutcher is famously the owner of a venture capital firm with shares 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 will star in Deadpool 3 alongside actor Hugh Jackman, who will play the role of Wolverine next year.