Exclusive: TIFF 2025: Ryan Reynolds Shares Lesson Learned From John Candy on People Pleasing
Ryan Reynolds thinks John Candy was ahead of his time.
As a producer on the new documentary John Candy: I Like Me, Ryan got a firsthand look at the legacy John left behind after his death at age 43 from a heart attack. Among the surprises was how much the Uncle Buck actor thought about mental health.
“I didn’t know that he had this sort of spiritual bedrock to him,” Ryan told E! News’ Francesca Amiker at the documentary’s world premiere during at the Opening Night Gala at TIFF Sept. 4. “I wasn’t aware, that he kind of lived at this intersection of being a people pleaser but also starting to kind of work on mental health, which is something nobody talked about back then. It’s still a little, you know, tricky to talk about but if you’re a people pleaser and you are dealing with mental health issues.”
As he put it, “It’s actually a really terrible combination because, you know, you, you’re the people pleaser never wants to burden anybody else and the only way to really kind of deal with stuff you’re going through is to talk about it. They’re kind of at odds with one another.”
