Ryan Reynolds to appear on Sask. podcast in Bella Brave’s memory

By Shawn Mullin

“I’m really happy to say I can make Ryan Reynolds laugh!”

Swift Current’s Kyla Thomson achieved that win while hosting the Canadian movie star on her podcast, Beyond Brave.

Kyla and her husband Lyle started hosting the podcast after their daughter Bella’s passing last July.

“We want to continue to share Bella’s legacy in this form so that we can continue to encourage other families like ours,” Kyla said.

The podcast gets a boost next week by having Reynolds on as a guest.

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“I’ve known Ryan personally for a while through his connection to Sick Kids Hospital,” Thomson said. “I met him when he visited Bella when he was shooting a commercial there for his ugly Christmas sweater campaign.

“I threw a text out there on social media just a couple of weeks ago now. Between me and a friend… it was me jokingly telling her all of the people I would like to have as guests on my podcast and Ryan being one of them and she’s like, wait, how are you gonna do that? I tagged him not thinking that he would actually respond to this story on my Instagram. He (directly messaged) me after seeing that I tagged him in that and said, let’s do it. When are you free?”

While they had a lot of fun on the show, they also focused on the charitable work and advocacy Reynolds does for medical families.

“He and his family are a valuable resource for our like #1 Canadian Sick Kids Hospital, and I wanted our listeners to get a background on that and of course, his connections with Bella, and who he is as a Canadian and what he does to help medical families like ours. Some rapid-fire questions that were really, really funny. A lot of Canadian content.”

The Thomsons also got to know another side of Reynolds as the actor wanted to learn about the challenges they’ve been dealing with in their grief.

“I think he lost the calling for being a therapist,” Thomson noted. “He actually was able to ask Lyle and I some really kind and thoughtful questions that we answered for him.”

The Beyond Brave podcast episode with Reynolds debuts on Jan. 27. It is available on all streaming platforms and YouTube.