A whole lot of pop culture dads, from Jane Austen novels to ’90s sitcoms, lament their misfortune at having daughters instead of sons. But that’s not the case for Ryan Reynolds, who loves being a girl dad.
Reynolds, who grew up in Vancouver, did an interview with Access on Friday — but instead of speaking with host Mario Lopez, he was interviewed by Lopez’s two kids, Gia and Dominic.
Reynolds didn’t hesitate when asked if his wife and thee daughters — James, 5, Inez, 4, and Betty, 1 — are the “superheroes” of his family.
“No joke, they’re the most capable people I know,” Reynolds said said. “ If anything got crazy or scary in my life, they’re the first people that I would lean on. They have wisdom and strength. They’re calm under fire, they have courage under fire.”
Gia also asked him what makes him the ultimate girl dad. That question stumped him a little bit, but he said he loves being a father to daughters.
“I love being a girl dad,” he said. “I have three daughters, which I never in a million years would imagine. I come from all boys, I have three older brothers. So for me to have three daughters has been such a ride and I love every second of it.”
His family is close, he said, because they make an effort to spend a lot of time together. The whole crew will come along when Reynolds or his wife Blake Lively travel to shoot a movie.
In April, Reynolds told Stephen Colbert that he’s perfectly fine being the lone male in his home. His mother-in-law came to live with them, Reynolds said at the time, and she was “a lifesaver.”
“You’re the only man in house with five women?” Colbert asked.
“I do not miss masculine company at all,” Reynolds replied. “Really, most men just tend to be the architects of someone’s demise. I like just being here with the girls. I like doing the girl stuff.”
Some of that girl stuff involves making dresses out of tissue paper, he explained. Even though he and Lively made an effort not to force traditionally “feminine” toys or activities on their daughters, they all seem to love pink, girly things, he said.
“I try not to push gender normative ideas on my kids as they’re born, but each one, when they came out that chute, just really wanted to make dresses,” he told Colbert. “They wanted to dress in hot pink all day so that’s what I do.”
He’s made it a point to bring up how much he loves being a “girl dad” in a lot of interviews, including one he gave Today in December, a few months after the announcement of the birth of his third daughter.
“I’d have it no other way,” he said.