From College Dropout To Deadpool

After he graduated high school, the acting gigs dried up and Reynolds worked two jobs simultaneously to make ends meet, tending a bar during the day and doing the midnight shift at his local Safeway store. Dissatisfied with the way his life was going, he enrolled on a criminology course at Kwantlen College, but he instantly knew it wasn't for him. He lasted less than an hour. "I'm not being facetious," Reynolds told Variety. "I spent 45 minutes in college, and I turned around and said, 'I'm going to drive to L.A. and try to get into the Groundlings.'"

Just as he was preparing to make the move to California, he landed a role as high school jock Jay De Boom in an episode of The X-Files that was being shot in Vancouver, though it did little for his confidence going forward. The episode's director, Rob Bowman, told the aspiring comedian that he was bound to fail if he went south of the border and that he would be better off staying in Canada.

"He told me never to go to Hollywood because I'd never make it there, first and foremost," Reynolds said. "And secondly, that I could have a very small yet profitable career here in Vancouver doing small parts, being hung by the neck by twin witches." Being told to "stay small" was a "crushing moment" for Reynolds, but Bowman's discouraging words only made him all the more determined to move to Hollywood.