Ryan Reynolds is approaching a milestone birthday, and the actor appears to be taking the prospect of turning 50 with his usual sense of humor. Preparing to depart his forties, Reynolds has already found one particularly Hollywood solution to the inevitable signs of aging. During an appearance with his Mayday co-star Kenneth Branagh, the actor turned the conversation quite literally toward his face, suggesting that time may have come for him to seek some cosmetic maintenance. 

With his milestone birthday approaching, Reynolds appears to have found a rather unconventional (or conventional by modern standards) way of preparing for the big five-oh.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight on the red carpet for Mayday, Ryan Reynolds joked about potentially getting cosmetic work done before his 50th birthday.

“This is scaffolding,” the actor said, exaggeratedly pointing to his own face before adding that he had already had his lips worked on not once but twice earlier in the day.

The joke prompted Kenneth Branagh to play along, suggesting that the second attempt had apparently produced the desired result. Reynolds, who turns 50 on October 23, clearly was not treating the exchange as a serious revelation.

The exchange he had with Entertainment Tonight, no matter how dystopian, actually fits neatly into Ryan Reynolds’ long-running habit of turning potentially awkward subjects into punchlines. Rather than presenting aging as something particularly dramatic, the actor made himself the joke's bull's-eye. 

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The playful exchange came during a promotional stop for a film that puts Reynolds in a very different kind of high-stakes situation.

After the birthday jokes, Ryan Reynolds had a more dangerous problem to discuss: surviving behind enemy lines in his new action comedy. In Mayday, Reynolds plays Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly, a US Navy fighter pilot whose secret mission goes disastrously wrong when he is shot down over Soviet territory during the Cold War. Stranded in 1987 Russia, Troy wakes up in the hands of Nikolai Ustinov, a former KGB agent played by Kenneth Branagh.

The unlikely pair eventually find themselves working together, turning what begins as a spy thriller setup into an action comedy built around their uneasy partnership.

After 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, the Jonathan Goldstein-helmed movie also gives Reynolds another opportunity to play the kind of quick-witted action hero audiences have come to associate with him. The film begins streaming on Apple TV on September 4.

For Reynolds, then, the Mayday promotional tour has offered a fitting combination of action, comedy and self-mockery. While Troy Kelly is concerned with escaping Soviet territory, Reynolds is joking about finding a way to survive turning 50 without the fine lines.

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What do you think of Ryan Reynolds' plans before turning 50? Let us know in the comments.