The current strike situation has put everyone on pause. For Shawn Levy, it has meant downing tools on his biggest gig to date, Deadpool 3, and taking an extended break from working with his besties, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. He may be itching to get back to it (more of which later) but at least h not having to maintain muscle mass as he waits for a resolution. ‘I feel bad that Hugh and Ryan have to keep eating obscene amounts of protein,' he laughs when we connect in his home base of New York in late August. ‘For me, it's impatience and a certain agita, the waiting. But for them, it's still, you know, boiled chicken 17 times a day…'
Still, the time off has given this self-confessed ‘optimi pragmatist' time to pause, ‘zoom out' and appraise his work to date, especially as he's being awarded the inaugural Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. With his filming postponed, Levy, a native Canuck, can really now. It's a huge Marvel movie co-starring Wolverine, and if I look at the totality of it, it might be intimidating. So I just figure out: “What's the next shot? What's the next joke? What's the next moment in the scene?”'
