The Life Story of Hollywood Icon Ryan Reynolds

Before he was a movie star, Ryan Reynolds was a Canadian teen actor awkwardly navigating the melodramatic corridors of Hillside—a low-budget soap filmed for Nickelodeon in 1991. At just 15, he played Billy Simpson, a moody, soft-spoken student in a fictional high school.

He later poked fun at his stiff acting, calling it wooden, but the show gave him his first paycheck and his first authentic taste of the entertainment world. While most forgot Hillside, Reynolds never did; it taught him how not to act, ironically shaping the performer he’d grow into years later.