Why ‘The Adam Project’ Filmmaker Shawn Levy Embraced Emotion Over Sci-Fi in the Netflix Time Travel Tearjerker

thewrap.com:

is already clamoring), but while that film offered its own unique challenges, “The Adam Project” posited a potentially insurmountable quest: find a kid who feels like he could be a younger version of Ryan Reynolds.Reynolds has a very specific kind of charm, a singular way of talking, and finding a pre-teen capable of mimicking the “Deadpool” actor seemed impossible.

But unbeknownst to Levy and Reynolds, the young man cast as the young Adam, Walker Scobell, happened to be one of the world’s biggest “Deadpool” fans.“In the same way that you can’t direct someone to be funny, you also can’t direct someone to be more Ryan Reynolds-ish,” Levy explained. “Here’s where I lucked out: I hired Carmen Cuba, who cast ‘Stranger Things’ for us, so I knew that I had a Jedi master of talent hunting in Carmen.

We found Walker who was authentic, utterly inexperienced and super grounded and real as a result. What I didn’t know is that Walker has been watching ‘Deadpool’ since he was seven.”Levy continued, recounting the day he and Reynolds discovered Scobell’s uncanny ability to embody the mannerisms of his co-star: “So he shows up Day One, he somehow knows exactly the way Ryan would say everything – and Ryan and I are like, ‘What is happening?

Why do you know every inflection, every pause, every talk-fast, every talk-slow?’ And Walker’s like, ‘I can recite ‘Deadpool 2’, you want me to?’ And we were like, ‘F—k off.’ Cut to he recites all of the movie, including like screen direction.