Here’s a piece of Buffy casting history that doesn’t get talked about enough: before Nicholas Brendon made Xander Harris one of the most loveable characters on television, the role was offered to Ryan Reynolds — who turned it down flat.
Reynolds was already working in Canadian TV in the mid-’90s, having started out on the teen drama Hillside and popped up in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch TV movie. That Sabrina connection is actually what put him on the Buffy casting team’s radar ahead of the show’s 1997 premiere. By his own account, he loved the concept and had huge respect for Joss Whedon. But he still said no.
The reason? High school. Reynolds had literally just graduated, and the memories were not fond ones. “I had just come out of high school and it was f***ing awful,” he said in a 2008 interview. Going straight back into playing a high schooler, even on what would become one of the most acclaimed shows of the decade, was more than he could stomach at the time.
It’s a fascinating what-if. Reynolds has the comedic timing, the dramatic range, and the physical presence that the role occasionally demanded — and landing a lead part on a show that ran for seven seasons and earned cult classic status would almost certainly have made him a household name years earlier than he eventually became. As it was, he didn’t really break through to A-list status until well into the 2000s.
Nicholas Brendon, of course, took the role and made it entirely his own. Xander’s journey across seven seasons — from loveable goof to someone with genuine emotional depth — is one of the show’s great character arcs, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else in it now.
Reynolds himself has no regrets. He’s said that every role he took and every role he turned down “led me to where I am” — and given that he’s now one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and a producer on the Deadpool franchise, it’s difficult to argue with that. Still, for Buffy fans, it’s one of those great sliding doors moments.
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