Ryan Reynolds pulls a Deadpool, tricks New York pizza joint into thinking he's Ben Affleck

Ryan Reynolds continues to prove he was born to play Deadpool on the big screen. Recently appearing on the Dear Hank & John podcast hosted by Hank and John Green, the actor revealed he's got a Wade Wilson-esque ruse going in real-life. 

“There’s a pizza place in the East Village in New York that I’ve been going to for years," he said. "They believe that I’m Ben Affleck and I’ve never corrected them … I feel like it would not go over well if I revealed [my true identity]."

Reynolds went on to say that the restaurant doesn't give him free food or perks based on this particular case of mistaken celebrity. "I also don’t accept anything,” he continued. “They’re not giving me free pizza. I do everything normal like everybody else, they just think I’m Ben Affleck and they’ll ask how J Lo is. I’ll be like, ‘Great,’ and I’ll take my pizza and off I go."

The whole thing has only been able to go on for so long because Reynolds continues to maintain the body language of a harassed superstar whenever he walks into the joint and is pelted with questions he can't really answer. “What I think makes it so believable is I look mildly sort of put out by [the fact] that they’re asking me again about my life and the movies," he explained. "When I leave, I think they sort of think, ‘I don’t think Ben Affleck’s amused by us and our questions’ … I got to be more chipper."

This may be the closest thing fans get to Deadpool-related antics for awhile as Marvel Studios and Disney continue to develop the character's calculated entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A script for Deadpool 3 is currently being penned by Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Loeglin (a pair of writers and executive producers on Bob's Burgers).

A third cinematic outing for the Merc With a Mouth was confirmed by Reynolds himself in December of 2019 as a sort of belated Christmas present. “Yeah, we’re working on it right now with the whole team," he told Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan. "We’re over at Marvel [Studios] now, which is the big leagues all the sudden. It’s kind of crazy. So yeah, we’re working on it.” 

He stirred up quite a bit of buzz two months prior to those comments with a surprise visit to the Marvel Studios offices. Right now, though, it's unclear how Disney (a company known for its family-friendly brand) will handle the foul-mouthed and Fourth Wall-breaking assassin in relation to the wider MCU. Before vacating his role as the corporation's CEO, Bob Iger stated that were was no reason to censor Deadpool, so long as his R-rated adventures were properly marketed to the public.