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Ryan Reynolds has revealed the emotional reason he was determined to pay tribute to Rob Delaney’s late son in Deadpool & Wolverine.
The Catastrophe actor’s two-year-old Henry, who he welcomed with his wife Leah, died in January 2018, following two years of treatment for a brain tumour.
Reynolds admitted he had always regretted not honouring Henry’s memory with a tribute in Deadpool 2, which was released the same year and in which Delaney plays the diabetic superhero Peter Pool.
Writing on Instagram this week, Reynolds said: “There’s more to Rob Delaney than some realise. He’s one of the most subversively funny people I know. He’s a beautiful, acerbic and vulnerable writer.”
The Deadpool star continued: “If you stayed through the credits of Deadpool & Wolverine, you might notice a credit saying, ‘For Henry Delaney.’ Henry was Rob’s son. And Rob lost his little boy to a brain tumor in 2018. Right as we finished Deadpool 2.
“I’ve always kicked my own a** because I didn’t place a tribute to Henry over the end credits,” Reynolds added.
“If there’s a bright side, even more people are seeing Henry’s name in the credits of Deadpool & Wolverine. And at long last, father and son are sharing the same screen.”
Praising Delaney’s 2022 “unfiltered, rageful, loving, sad and hilarious” memoir, A Heart That Works, the actor concluded: “I’m lucky to know Rob. And I’m lucky to have friends willing to put themselves on the line to make others feel less alone.”
Henry first showed symptoms of a brain tumour at 11 months old, when he began repeatedly vomiting.
Delaney said doctors told him they suspected a tumour on 27 April, 2016 – the day after he won a Bafta Award for Catastrophe with co-writer with Sharon Horgan.
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Describing the day he and Leah received the results from the MRI scan in his book, Delaney said it was “the heaviest pain in the world”.
“Grief drove a bus through the part of my brain where memories are stored,” Delaney said.
“After the MRI, Dr Anson confirmed that Henry had a large tumour in the back of his head, near his brain stem. He delivered the news calmly, and ended by saying a paediatric brain surgeon would come to see us within a few hours.
“We sank inside ourselves. The heaviest pain in the world. I felt like I had suddenly quadrupled in weight, and an oily, black whirlpool began to swirl where my heart had been.”
Henry underwent an operation to remove the tumour, and was able to move back home in June 2017. A follow-up scan in September, however, found that the cancer had returned.
Recalling the family’s final few days with Henry, Delaney said: “I lay with him, and Leah held him and danced with him. His brothers read to him and played with him.”
The toddler died peacefully at home in January 2018.
“Henry opened his eyes and looked into Leah’s eyes around five the next morning. Then he died,” Delaney wrote.
“I am so happy Henry died at home. I am so happy that he did so in the arms of his beautiful mother, who loved him desperately.
“I am so happy that he lay between us afterward and we could kiss and hold him and stroke his beautiful, long, sandy-blonde hair.”
