Ryan Reynolds Honors Late 'Friend and Mentor' Eric Gilliland, Who Gave a 'Scrawny, Hungover 19-Year-Old' a 'Break'

Mar. 15, 2025

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Ryan Reynoldsis using a special moment to memorialize a dear friend.

“I want to dedicate this very fine honor to a writer, to one of my closest friends, Mr. Eric Gilliland,” Reynolds said on stage at the event, held in Los Angeles on Thursday, Nov. 14. “I wouldn’t be standing here if not for that man.”

The actor, 48, recalled meeting the “magical” Gilliland almost three decades ago, “when I was a scrawny, desperately hungover 19-year-old kid.”

“I didn’t really know who I was yet. I was trying on personalities like they were shirts, and Eric liked me, and that made me like me,” he continued.

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Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty

According to Reynolds, Gilliland introduced him to “greats” likeJack BennyandBuster Keaton, and “invited me into writers' circles that no high-school dropout had any business being invited to.”

TheIFstar joked his late friend “had many shortcomings,” quipping, “He was not great at housekeeping, not great at buying new shoes … He hung in there until his feet looked like they were somehow wrapped in a foxhole fromWorld War I.”

“But Eric’s prime virtue was that he was kind and that he showed up for people. He showed up for everyone, and he didn’t care if you were a waiter or busboy or movie star, and I hated that,” Reynolds continued.

He added, “He modeled a way of being for me when I was probably at my most impressionable, and I think, to varying degrees of success, I have tried to live up to that impossible standard that Eric set. He was as good at being brilliantly funny as he was at being a friend and mentor.”

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Eric Gilliland in New York City on June 3, 2010.AMBER De VOS /Patrick McMullan via Getty

AMBER De VOS /Patrick McMullan via Getty

“His memorial was a testament to a man who lived life just about as beautifully as any life could possibly be lived,” he continued. “And it really reminded me of what I love most about this business, and it’s that we all get to work together. We get to create things together.”

source: people.com