Maximum Effort, co-founded in 2018 with former Fox head of digital theatrical marketing George Dewey and named for a line in Deadpool, was forged from the bootstrap promotion of the first film. “Maximum Effort” also serves as Reynolds’ life motto. “I can’t say I’ve invested every cell of my body into something that failed,” he admits. “The things that I’ve failed at, I usually didn’t fully believe in.” That same year, Reynolds invested in Aviation Gin. Rather than just lending his face to the brand, Reynolds pitched a cheeky marketing strategy that riffed on his own persona—he filmed a Father’s Day commercial in which he invented a cocktail called “the vasectomy.”

Maximum Effort’s 50-some employees frequently collaborate with MNTN, the advertising platform for which Reynolds serves as chief creative officer. Mark Douglas, MNTN’s CEO, recently had lunch with Reynolds and ambassadors from a brand. “They were describing themselves and what they do, and right at the table he created a commercial in front of them,” Douglas says. “He just imagined how he would tell this story in 30 seconds on television.”

The year after Reynolds’ investment, Aviation increased its volumes by 100%. The U.K.-based Diageo bought the liquor company for $610 million in 2020. Next, Reynolds bought 25% of Mint Mobile, a discount telecom company with little brand recognition. Mint Mobile raised revenue by nearly 50,000% from 2017 to 2020, according to TechCrunch, thanks in no small part to Reynolds’ omnipresent ads. Mint sold to T-Mobile for $1.35 billion in 2023.

Many actors care as much or more about building their brand as honing their craft. When I tell Reynolds that some skeptics object to the practice of pursuing commercial gain to the possible detriment of artistic achievement, he squints in surprise. “You think that there are young actors who are like, ‘I want to get famous so I can own a brand that sells lots of stuff?’” he asks. I do.

“I’m not saying I’m the exception to the rule, but I love marketing,” he says. “It’s diet storytelling. You can look at a commercial through the same prism you would look at a movie. I get a lot of creative fulfillment out of that. You cannot be as precious about it, because it’s just a f-cking commercial. But as long as you acknowledge to the consumer they’re being marketed to, then there’s an authenticity to it.”

That earnestness helps Reynolds stand out in a crowd of celebrity spokespeople. “When people say, ‘What’s he really like?’ I say exactly what you think,” says McElhenney. “There’s no higher compliment you can give someone in our business than they’re exactly who they say they are because so many people create a public persona that is not congruent with who they really are. With Ryan, you don’t feel like you’re being sold a bill of goods.”

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When Reynolds is stopped on the street, he doesn’t just take selfies with fans. He asks who the most important person in their life is, and records a video for that person. He can’t seem to help himself. Over the course of several weeks, I watch him walk into room after room and pitch jokes, marketing concepts, and movie ideas to anyone and everyone. He exchanges horror stories with a photographer about tantrums at school drop-off and compares notes with me about the techniques we learned in our respective toddler CPR classes.

That approachability can create problems in his real life, like when he visits his kids’ school and their classmates start asking him about Deadpool. “I see my daughter’s lips tighten,” he admits. “I don’t want to be closed off to the other kids. So I don’t really know how to play it.”

But it benefits his bottom line. When an ill-advised Peloton ad that featured a husband monitoring his wife’s fitness journey went viral in 2019, Reynolds called up the actress and convinced her to appear in one for Aviation Gin. The commercial’s star, Monica Ruiz, took a good deal of convincing. But Reynolds can talk anyone into just about anything. Or just about: After the photoshoot to accompany this story, Reynolds repeatedly pitched TIME’s editors on a cover featuring the back of his head instead of his face.