There’s A John Candy Easter Egg Hiding in All the ‘Deadpool’ Movies

Ryan Reynolds is an unabashed John Candy superfan. “He was so generous with people, and he was a good person when no one was watching,” he told Stephen Colbert last month. That’s one reason Reynold is producing a documentary about the comedian’s life, John Candy: I Like Me, scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival later this year.

“Growing up, I had a real obsession, quite genuine, with John Candy,” Reynolds told David Letterman on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. “And I still do.”

The Deadpool actor says he grew up idolizing Candy and comedians like Steve Martin. “If I’m flummoxed in a scene or I can’t figure out a way in, I will just copy them,” he confessed. “That sort of Neal Page (Martin’s character), Trains, Planes and Automobiles, kind of aggressively unimpressed, kind of over-it character. I just love that. I can never get enough.”

Reynolds told Letterman he carries the spirit of Candy with him in every performance. And in his Deadpool movies, he plants regular Easter eggs as a tribute to his hero. “There’s a book (Candy) is reading in Planes, Trains and Automobiles called The Canadian Mounted,” Reynolds laughed. “And it’s supposed to be this nonfiction, sort of soft porn, basically. Sort of trash. Sub-Danielle Steele. Like, we’re talking nasty.”

Reynolds says he has the book — okay, not the actual book from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but a replica created for his Deadpool films. “I’m carrying it under my arm in a number of scenes,” he revealed. The crazy part? “I don’t think it’s ever actually seen on camera.” (Note to Reynolds: The Canadian Mounted was seen on camera in both Deadpool 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine.)

While The Canadian Mounted seems like a gag created for a John Hughes comedy, it’s allegedly a real book. The saucy paperback was published in 1981 by Beeline Books, the fine folks behind other erotic titles like the double-novel Lawfully Wedded Nymph and With This Ring, I Thee Lust. That’s a lot of smut value for $3.75.

Deadpool reading The Canadian Mounted is a funny gag on its own, but it’s unlikely that anyone outside the most fervent John Candy devotee would get the Planes, Trains and Automobiles reference. That’s okay with Reynolds. “It’s just one of those little things,” he told Letterman. “You try to never forget those people who have helped grow you where you are.”