In 2019, back when Fox was a new part of Disney and there was no pandemic, we travelled to Boston to visit the set of Free Guy. This was a big, over-the-top action movie designed for the big screen unlike most since it wasn't based on any established IP. It looks like a big budget video game adaptation with big name movie stars, that wasn't at all based on any game.
This oddly simply idea formed the beginning of our conversation with Ryan Reynolds who plays the titular Guy in Free Guy and director-producer Shawn Levy, both of whom seemed to be so positive and relaxed about the development and production of the film, despite there being a slight rain delay and them shooting a wild action scene beside our tent.
We even saw some people walking around in costumes that looked they were from PUBG and Fortnite, but these were just player avatars in the video game world known as Free City...
Most of us don't know enough about this movie. What can you reveal? What is it about?
Shawn Levy: Well, I have to tell you, I kind of love that most of you don't know enough about this movie because it's the sign of one of the unique things about this movie, which is it's an actual new movie.
Ryan Reynolds: A new movie, Shawn?
Shawn Levy: Yes. A new movie.
Ryan Reynolds: What's it based upon?
Shawn Levy: It's based on fresh ideas.
Ryan Reynolds: Wait, no.
Shawn Levy: Yes. I tell you.
Ryan Reynolds: An existing IP of some sort, a comic book?
Shawn Levy: Nope. Nothing.
Ryan Reynolds: A novel?
Shawn Levy: No prior branding.
Ryan Reynolds: Gross.
Shawn Levy: Yeah, gross, but definitely an unusual thing in 2019. So Free Guy is about a guy who gradually realizes that he is a background character, an NPC, in a video game. So it's about his slow awakening to consciousness regarding his world, his identity and the potential of both.
Ryan Reynolds: That's about right. That sounds very nice. Is that right?
Shawn Levy: Yeah.
Is there a player in the background to your character, you know what I mean? (someone playing you, so to speak)
Ryan Reynolds: We have players.
Shawn Levy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, no, no. So the game is called Free City and Free City is an open world shooter. Probably, certainly shades of GTA and other games of that ilk, but like that kind of game, you have NPCs and you have players. And the NPCs exists to make the entertainment of the players more vivid. And so Ryan plays Guy, a bank teller, whose very name signals his genericness and he loves his life until he slowly realizes that there might be more to his life than he thought.
And in a video game world where anything is possible, if you became aware of the artifice of your world, you might be capable of anything. So it's about the slow empowerment. From day one, we talked about that this is in some ways a superhero origin story minus the IP of a superhero, because he's just a real guy who slowly realizes he might have a power in his life beyond what he thought.
Ryan Reynolds: 100% more khaki.
Shawn Levy: Oh, and 100% more khaki and no tights, no capes.
What sort of threats come to play in his world? Because if it is a Grand Theft Auto style world and you're a bank teller, I can only imagine how shit goes sideways.
Ryan Reynolds: Well, there's an enormous amount of threats left, right. And center. His entire world is a threat. But basically, he's never known anything different than gunfire going off in the distance in the background, seeing just unblinking, unmitigated violence all the live long day, but also there's something wonderful about the discovery of this character sort of realizing that it doesn't have to be like this. So to me there's something fun about his evolution into something trying to change, not just his own existence, but everyone's.
Shawn Levy: Because also in a video game, in a game like this, if you work in a bank, you're probably looking at eight to 16 robberies a day, every day of your life. But for Guy, it's part of his life. Wake up, have coffee, go to work, get robbed, get beaten up, go back to work, get robbed, get a beaten up.
Ryan Reynolds: Half the time he doesn't even interrupt his sentence that he's in the middle of while he's being robbed. He's having a conversation with somebody. He just carries on.
Shawn Levy: Lil Rel plays the security guard, the bank guard.
Ryan Reynolds: My best friend.
Shawn Levy: His best friend. And it's like, when that gunman comes in the door, it's just like, they just lie down like submissive puppies, because no one ever stops a robbery in Free City, you just get robbed. So more globally, on an entertainment level you've got pretty much every scene we do in Free City has layers of background, where we're telling the story of Guy, but you've got layers of background, often out of focus, where you have missile launches and helicopter crashes and gun shifts and muggings and carjackings.
Ryan Reynolds: Obscene things happening.
Shawn Levy: Oh so many carjackings. But again, that is the normal for Guy until he realizes that maybe this should not be my normal. And there's a... it's kind of an awakening of consciousness and he develops agency over his own existence.
Ryan Reynolds: There's something pretty amazing to me about having so much spectacle, soft focus background and the resisting the urge to sharpen that focus and see it. It's something I love about our movie and its language and the fact that all these things happen in ways that we're not hyper-focused on. It's just in the background. So really it's an immersive experience in as much as you feel like you're in Free City with Guy and his friends and his close friends.
Shawn Levy: And for me just territorially, because the movie exists in two worlds, there's in Free City and then there's in the real world and we can talk about that as well, coming up with very distinct, rigorous visual rules to distinguish those worlds, me and George Richmond, who shot Rocketman and Kingsman, we spent months of prep, basically writing Bibles for the aesthetic of each world so that they feel distinct and different.
Within the world, it's told from Guy's perspective?
Shawn Levy: Within Free City.
Ryan Reynolds: Only in Free City.
The meta layer is like the real world?
Shawn Levy: Yeah. The meta layer would be the real world, our world. And that's really the narrative. There's two, there's really two protagonists. There's Guy and there's Jodie Comer's character. So Jodie is the protagonist of the film in many ways.
Ryan Reynolds: Both worlds, really.
Shawn Levy: Guy exists only in the game. Jodie plays, she basically wrote the code for Free City and something went down with her creation and she's going in and out of the game as her avatar, Molotov Girl, in order to crack that mystery and solve that problem. So Jodie, who I think you'll chat with today as well, she's remarkable because we really needed an actress who could play two parts. So yes, we toggle between Free City where we are with Guy and Molotov Girl and the real world where the game is published and massive hit for the company run by Taika Waititi's character, Antoine, he plays Antoine and Milly who was wronged in that world and is trying to set things right. But the kind of intersection of Guy and Milly is both characters feel like backgrounds in their own existences and they become empowered as they meet and start to join forces.
A two-parter for you! Do you have, now that you're part of the Disney family, TRON Easter eggs or references in this movie? And part two, since you're both very busy on current projects, what was it about this script that said, "I have to do this. This is something that I have to get done."
Shawn Levy: Really good questions.
Ryan Reynolds: Question one, no, not that I know of.
Shawn Levy: I'm going to say no with an asterisk, other than the fact that I frequently play score on set to put us all in the mood and the TRON score has been in heavy rotation. I would say this, there's a lot of Easter eggs in this movie, alluding to a number of games and movies and movies about games, but I'm going to stay a little cagey on whether there's a TRON specific one.
And then that's a very good point because we both are lucky to have a lot of opportunity.
Ryan Reynolds: That's true.
Shawn Levy: I, for one have said no to directing movies for four and a half years. For me, I'll just go first, it was the fact that it was Ryan called and he was like, "I think that this thing is something that we would combine really well on." And it felt like it had a combination of a big, funny, action packed premise, with themes that I could get my arms around. Themes that aren't just unique to gaming culture, but to living, as a human. So for me, it was the mixture of entertainment potential is massive, visually filled with spectacle, but also that warm humanist center that frankly, I only do movies that I feel can give me that.
Ryan Reynolds: Many of the same points Shawn made, but I love the world. I love marketing. So I also love the idea that you get to introduce people to a new world and a new sort of what we talked about, not only when we sat down here, but for a while, Shawn and I have been talking about it, that it's just so fun to do something new, something that is quite literally based on absolutely nothing.
So I love the process of acquainting an audience with this new property or this new idea. And it's big. The scale is big. And I think it's appealing to a huge audience. And it's something that... just the good, old fashioned reason that I want to do it is it's something I want to see, something I just am dying to see. I read the script and we all did a ton of work on the script, but there was such a promise there of something new and something really special. It's not unlike how I grabbed onto Deadpool. I just felt like there was a reason that this needed to exist. And I felt the same way about freedom, Free City.
Another two-part thing! In the "real" world, is there any version of you? Do you play a second character at all? And then two, just on Easter eggs, any Pikachu or Pokemon kind of Easter eggs?
Ryan Reynolds: The movie's got a lot of, like we said, soft focus background. There's always something pretty amazing happening. I think the movie, for those that do love Easter eggs, I don't think Easter eggs are a storytelling pillar, but I do think that Easter eggs, especially in 2019 or in this case 2020 when it comes out, are something that audiences love, and I love and appreciate. So the movie will be riddled with Easter eggs.
Shawn Levy: When you have the producer, writer, star of Deadpool and the producer of Stranger Things, there is a high quotient of cultural literacy as far as we love popular culture. We like alluding to it and contributing to it. So I will just say that there are some pop-ups and some Easter eggs in Free Guy that are as juicy as anything I've ever done in anything.
I have a question for Shawn. Do you follow what's been happening with Grand Theft Auto right now?
Shawn Levy: Right now, meaning kind of up to the last iteration?
Yeah, because right now GTA Online is one of the biggest games out there, still, and there are large communities who have built their own custom versions of it and role-play situations you describe - like people robbing banks every day to get money and the same NPCs get hurt or being taken hostage every single day. These role-players and community dominate on Twitch and YouTube so I was wondering if that served as any inspiration for Free Guy.
Shawn Levy: Yes, I'm very aware of it. And that was definitely a big part. I played it casually and it was a big part of our research for this movie. But as someone who was once attached to Minecraft, once attached to Uncharted, I'm thrilled I'm making a movie about video games that is not beholden to any video game. And so to be very, very clear, this is in no way, a literal adaptation of anything that's existed. So while I'm aware of it, we're not quoting anything too literally, but it does feel like this movie is very much of this moment and yes, it's informed by what we're seeing in terms of the platforms that people are playing on and the way that people are immersing and interacting in gaming right now.
Gotcha. Thanks!
[Note: At this point, Ryan Reynolds was pulled away to set for a moment]
Shawn Levy: Okay. I'll chat.
Do you plan on pushing Free Guy for E3 or at a Comic-Con maybe?
Shawn Levy: Well, it's interesting, I guess my, this is the first big original tent pole from Fox in the Disney era. So I, as I sit here with you in the summer of 19, I honestly don't know how exactly this will be platformed and launched into the world. As far as our materials, we've got these new partners at Disney. So far things are extremely harmonious. They've certainly gotten behind the movie in a way that's exciting to Ryan and I, but it does feel like, given the audience, that there would be an E3 component, maybe not in lieu of Comic- Con, but, again, make no mistake, to gamers the movie should feel like, Oh, you know what? They got it. They got so many things right, but it's not exclusively for that audience. If we do our job well, it's going to make a gamer feel seen and like we got certain things right, but it should be more broadly resonant and relatable than just gamers.
How are you going to make Free Guy something that non-gamers can understand?
Ryan Reynolds: I always look at like, sports movies are good metaphors. The great greatest sports movies ever made are not actually about sports. Field of Dreams, I wouldn't characterize that as a baseball story. They used baseball as a vehicle to tell a really beautiful story about a son and a father trying to connect. And I think that we're doing the same thing. We're using the video game world, the Free City world and video game culture as a sort of a vehicle to tell this really beautiful and powerful human story.
Shawn Levy: You know what also helps is, if you have a character who is realizing the rules of a world, you're able to have an audience surrogate. So I just saw something where I was like, oh, like Chernobyl. I was watching Chernobyl and I was like, "Wow, that was brilliant to have the Skarsgard character know nothing, so that the other guy could literally explain how a nuclear reactor works." And it's basically a very smart way of educating the audience about the rules of engagement, the rules of the game. Free Guy does something similar because as Guy awakens to wait, what is happening? How does this work? It allows us to have him learn it, just as a non-gaming audience member would be learning it. But I think the other thing is to never be so insidey, wink, wink inside baseball with the jokes, that half the audience feels excluded. But that is the line we're going to walk and it's a line I'm sure we're going to continue to explore as we edit the movie and put it in front of audiences and realize that, have we gone far enough? Have we gone too far?
Are you guys aiming for a PG-13 rating?
Shawn Levy: Yeah.
You can do a lot with video game action in a PG-13 movie.
Shawn Levy: Especially when it's in a video game. Look at Marvel, right? Marvel, Star Wars, no real blood, no real Gore, a lot of blaster hits, a lot of gunfire, no real blood and guts. While there are many video games that embrace the splatter, there are many others that don't. We are one of those.
Do you think when this comes out people are going to want a Free City game?
Shawn Levy: Hope so.
Ryan Reynolds: Right? That'd be great. Yeah.
We talked about this on Tuesday a little bit, but what appealed to you for basing the production here in Boston? You worked here for R.I.P.D..
Ryan Reynolds: I shot Proposal here was the first time I shot here and I loved it. And for a movie that's set in Alaska you wouldn't expect Boston to be the location, but I loved it. It was great. I live in New York City. Shawn also sometimes lives in New York City. So proximity wise, it's pretty great.
Shawn Levy: Yeah. It was, I think, proximity to home bases, but also wanting a city that didn't feel overshot. Especially just given, we know Atlanta for instance has been shot 20 times for Marvel movies? But what I wanted was a city that could feel that I could take as a foundation for, because unlike say GTA where you're replicating Chicago or LA, Free City is a fictional every city, a fictional almost self-consciously generic, timeless, every city.
Boston has such an eclecticism of architecture. I like that you've got a brick building next to a Superman looking granite skyscraper, next to something more ornamental. We're really embracing the diversity of Boston architecture. And I also love the fact that basically every Saturday and Sunday, we're able to shut down a multi block quadrant of Boston and use it as the greatest backlot on earth.
I know that you mentioned, you worked on the script prior to filming. You've done a lot of work on scripts for the various projects you've done. Can you talk a little bit about how you guys worked together on it? What was the things that you felt needed to be tweaked or adjusted?
Ryan Reynolds: I don't know. I can only speak for myself. I find script writing awful. I'm sure a lot of screenwriters might agree with that. I don't know. It's not my bread and butter. It's not the thing I'm doing every single day all the time. I've learned to do it out of survival. But working on this one, I just kind of loved distinguishing voices. For me, it was about that. It was about really clarifying these different voices and perspectives and then creating a situation in which all of these are colliding at the right time. And I love the premise, the work that Matt Lieberman did, the initial writer. He did a beautiful job of creating a world that we could all hook into. And then myself, Shawn, Zak Penn, we just started passing the draft back and forth.
Shawn Levy: Yeah, we three-wayed it, basically, round and round. Ryan has an extremely sharp and unique comedic voice. So I'll say, he not only distinguished the voices of each character, but he just made it way fucking funnier, just way, way, way funnier. And then I'll also credit, Ryan was the one who he was at a certain point in the rewrite was asking questions about, "Well, what is this female protagonist? What is her objective? Are we clear enough on that?" And it really galvanized me and Zak Penn to take that script, step back and just question everything to make sure that Jodie Comer's character had as specific and passionate an objective as Guy's character. And so I'd say the other thing the three of us did a lot of, again, is we just passed the draft around and around in this group email chain was to really fortify that secondary protagonist storyline.
Shawn Levy: And then just as I started prepping the movie with previs artists and storyboard artists and the stunt team, what came clear to me is, oh my God, you can do the most massive set pieces. In a world that's a video game there's no rules of reality. So this movie has by two or three times more action stunts and spectacle than any movie I've done, including the Night at the Museums, including Real Steel. This has a diversity of set pieces because it's not just boxing or it's not just historical creatures. It's everything I could dream up. When I fell in love with a visual idea, we worked it into the script.
Ryan Reynolds: And one other thing that I love about the script and the editing process is a whole other writing exercise in and of itself, but I remember Richard Curtis had the best advice. He said, "Give every character, no matter how small, a beginning, middle and end." And that is a tall order on any movie, but it's something that we've worked hard to do on this, is give as many of our background characters and smaller characters a kind of mini arc. And I love that. I love seeing that. I've known Richard Curtis for almost 15 years now, but just watching how he does that is something really beautiful to me. Just these little characters that have one or two lines, giving them a tiny little want, or a need, and fulfilling that at the end is important.
Shawn Levy: Especially since it's a movie about NPCs. It's a movie about, oh, you were created to live in the background, but what if you could rewrite your own code? What if you could redefine your own place in the world? So in a movie that is literally about that theme, it was incumbent on us to take every NPC, the bank teller, of course, but we're shooting a scene with the shoe clerk. He's got a little arc, the barista at the coffee shop, the security guard in the bank. So really tasking ourselves with giving these small but specific arcs for every background character, so that no one is existing just in the background, but rather have their own inner life.
Shawn Levy: Well, yeah, I should go check. Because I feel like we should be shooting.
Speaking of video game NPCs, what is Guy's objective once he breaks free of the loop?
Ryan Reynolds: Oh boy, I don't want to spoil anything.
We can talk about Jodie's character. You mentioned the game, she's lost control of it.
Ryan Reynolds: That's a big plot point, too. That's up to you. I don't know.
Shawn Levy: I don't know if this stuff is being held or whatnot. I'd love to stay a little more vague about that. I know some of it's already online. Let's do another last question because I don't want to leave you with disappointment.
Does Taika Waititi have an avatar in the game?
Shawn Levy: I don't want to say that. A, it needs to be said, Taika came in like a fucking assassin on this movie and just rewrote the rules of comedy in the most dramatic way. He came in, it's been a long time since he's acted in something that he didn't direct. And so for him, he had absolute freedom. And he came in and was one of the greatest improvisers I've ever, ever seen.
Ryan Reynolds: Unreal.
Shawn Levy: And I've worked with Robin Williams and Ricky Gervais and some of the best. Taika is next. He's up there. And then we have Joe Keery and Utkarsh Ambudkar who work in the real world at the company that Taika's character runs. But as far as who's in the game, who's out of the game, at least until we figure out when we're going to show that stuff-
Ryan Reynolds: We'll say this, people can go in.
Shawn Levy: Yep. Yeah.
Ryan Reynolds: Anyone could go in.
Shawn Levy: Yep. Because anyone can play. All you got to do is log on.
Steve: Gotcha. Perfect. Thanks you guys.
Ryan Reynolds: Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Talk to you guys soon.
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Joe Keery, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Taika Waititi, “Free Guy” is directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn and a story by Lieberman. The film is produced by Ryan Reynolds, p.g.a., Shawn Levy, p.g.a., Sarah Schechter, Greg Berlanti and Adam Kolbrenner with Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, George Dewey, Dan Levine and Michael Riley McGrath serving as executive producers.
Some of the video gaming world’s most influential figures drop in for cameos in “Free Guy,” including: Imane “Pokimane” Anys, Lannan “LazarBeam” Eacott, Seán William “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Daniel “DanTDM” Middleton.