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FEATURE
38
jbhifi.com.auFEBRUARY
2016
DVD
&
BD
1998
2004
2010
You gotta start somewhere...
“I started when I was 13 years old. I did a
really horrible soap opera called
Fifteen
for
Nickelodeon that stoned college kids kept on the
air for three years.” Then came a regular role in
sitcom
Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place
(1998–2001), and National Lampoon feature
Van
Wilder: Party Liaison
(2002). “It made me the
party guy,” he recalls of the latter. “I would walk
into a bar and people would start lining up the
shots. You could sum up my career at that point
as a free shot at a bar.”
THE Beefcake Horror Phase
Embarking on a three-month-long workout and a 3200 calories-
a-day diet, he added 25 pounds of muscle to his physique for the
role of vampire slayer Hannibal King in
Blade: Trinity
(2004), and
consequently kept his shirt off in the remake of
The Amityville
Horror
, released the same year. “That time changed my life
because it taught me you can actually do things that were previously
impossible,” he told
Men’s Fitness
.
THE INDIE PHASE
Having starred in a few failed comedies and hit-and-
miss action films, he entered the independent film
circuit and proved he was more than just a funny
guy with a pretty face, in movies like
The Nines
(2007),
Buried
(2010) and
The Voices
(2014).
“That was such a wake-up call for me,” he says of
his experience on
The Nines
. “The movie was made
on less than a million dollars. I loved the process.
There were particular films after that that I went
after. I had a new view.”
THE ROM-COM PHASE
His boyish good looks made him
a natural choice as a romantic
lead opposite Sandra Bullock
in
The Proposal
(2009) and
Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and
Rachel Weisz in
Definitely,
Maybe
(2008).
THE SUPERHERO PHASE
He fought hard for the role of Hal Jordan in
The Green Lantern
(2011)
only to regret it following
friction with director Martin Campbell on the set, poor reviews and box office failure. An appearance as
Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, in
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
(
2009) led him to reprise the role of the
wisecracking Marvel mercenary in the hotly anticipated
Deadpool
(2016), a passion project he describes
as being “the most faithful adaptation of comic to film we’ve ever seen”.
2002
2007
2008
2014
2016
2011
2009