Join WhatsApp Channel
Join Telegram Channel“I had moved on,” says the face of Blade, invited to reprise his role in Deadpool & Wolverine. Warning, spoilers!
Now that the cameos of Deadpool & Wolverine are no longer a secret to anyone, it's time to take stock. Channing Tatum has already confided in the scope of Gambit, a superhero that he finally has the opportunity to embody on screen after a buried film project. And then there is Chris Evanswhich brought more than one tear to the eye as he recalled that “Johnny Storm will always have a special place in [son] heart”.
One of those whose point of view we were very keen to know is Wesley Snipes. Now in his sixties, the actor has donned Eric Brooks' vampire hunter costume again, twenty years after the last installment of the trilogy produced by Fox around his character, Blade. Prisoner in the depths of the Vortex dominated by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), he returns surrounded by Elektra, X-32 and Gambit, and agrees to help the characters Wade Wilson and Logan escape. The opportunity for him and the others to reach the end of their story and be able to turn the page. A very meta arc, therefore, which fits perfectly into the plot of this third part of Dead Pool.
At San Diego Comic-Con, Snipes spoke toEW on the circumstances that led him to reprise his role as a sharp-toothed swordsman, while the idea of starring in a fourth film Blade had fallen through some time ago.
“Over the years we have had some very interesting conversations, some very substantive and some not.he says. So I thought I had to move on, which is okay. I made three films. Bladeand I thought they were pretty good. Not too bad… So we moved on to something bigger, better.”
But that was without counting on a certain Ryan Reynolds and his incredible aspirations for this new film. Because one day, without warning, the mastermind of the saga Dead Pool sends him a rather cryptic message: “I need to talk to you”.
Let's remember that twenty years ago, Ryan Reynolds made an incursion into the Snipes universe by playing Hannibal King, a former vampire who had returned to the good guys' side. On the set, Snipes and Reynolds were not the best of buddies, to say the least. The Blade actor remembers:
“Some of the things he was doing aren't really my kind of humor. I'm not receptive to that kind of stuff. So I thought it was a bit of a stretch for me. But to see him do it in that context [dans Deadpool & Wolverine] made a lot of sense. Ryan does things that most people can't do. It's his thing, but he does it well. He's unique in that way, and he's found a fantastic niche for himself. Deadpool is Ryan Reynolds all day long. So it was nice to work with him in that context. It was nice to revisit the movie.”
Their prior collaboration is recalled in Deadpool & Wolverine. When they first meet, Blade (Snipes), exasperated by the chatterbox that is Wade Wilson, tells him: “I don’t like you very much” well placed. To which, behind the mercenary's scarlet mask, Reynolds responds: “You never loved me”.
But to make this possible, Wesley Snipes had to be convinced that it was a good idea.
“I didn't think it was possible, explains the actor. I didn't think we would be able to do it. I didn't think Marvel or Disney would be interested in it, especially because they had chosen Mahershala. (Ali) for the next version of the movie. I thought it didn't make sense to me, but when you get a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, you think: 'Okay, I have to take this call. Let's see what it's about.' He told me about the idea… Marvel and Disney approved, let's go. 'If you agree, so do we'. And here we are.”
The adventure was not without its challenges for Wesley Snipes: keeping the secret, protecting it from his loved ones, even; but also getting back into the shape required by his character's activities. Today, he recounts this step with a smile, but we can well imagine that getting back into shape must not have been easy:
“I wasn't ready for Blade, man. I don't walk around as Blade every day, you know what I mean? With a trench coat and goggles and fangs in my mouth. We had to train. The physical side had to be back, and my biggest concern was being in good enough shape to handle whatever action it was. They didn't really tell me what the action was going to be, so I prepared for whatever was coming. Luckily, I didn't have to do as much as I thought I would, because action movies are tough. After about a month, I got back into good shape… and then, with the help of some well-placed foam mats, everything was good, baby. Let's go!”
On the set, everything was not easy. In addition to a large-scale fight scene, the actor had to face the cold, and the vagaries of the strike that took place from July to November 2023, interrupting filming:
“Man, it was so cold out there. My balls shrivelled up about like that, bro. It was freezing when we shot that movie. We started shooting before the strike, in the summer. Then we had to come back, and it was winter. It was winter where we shot in Europe, very, very hard. Doing action scenes in sub-zero temperatures is not easy and it's not good for your health, that's for sure.”
You have to suffer to be Blade. Besides, Wesley Snipes has already passed the torch to Mahershala Alichosen to lead a reboot whose production, which has been on hold for some time, will undoubtedly be boosted by the appearance of the character in Deadpool 3. When the casting was announced, fans protested violently, but were quickly calmed by Snipes' public approval. Today, he reiterates his encouragement to his successor:
“I told him he had my full blessing and support. I even made reference to the fact that some of the challenges they're facing today with the project shouldn't be attributed to him. It's not the actor's fault. There's a lot of other elements that go into making this movie. It takes a lot of a certain secret ingredient to nail the Blade thing, man. Good luck. I trust you.”
Deadpool & Wolverineof Shawn Levyand with Ryan Reynolds, Hugh JackmanEmma Corrin and Wesley Snipes, is still in theaters. Here's the trailer: