Exclusive – The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard director on making Ryan Reynolds suffer: "I love hurting him!"

"Maybe it's just me wanting to see him suffer but you know, we just do put him through the absolute wringer...just mess his face up," he told RadioTimes.com. "I love doing that, I love hurting him!"

Explaining that the film was a particularly fun one to work on, Hughes picks out a scene in which Reynolds is hit by a car and dramatically launched into the ocean as his favourite, claiming that the Deadpool star was none too pleased about it at the time.

"That was a night shoot, so it was two in the morning," he explained. "And I was like, cool my cameras are set up – Ryan, need you to get in the water. So there's Ryan dressed in a suit, it's two in the morning and it doesn't matter how you play a night shoot, they are exhausting, they are brutal.

"I was like, 'Cool, man, this is why you get paid the big bucks – get in the water.' And I think his last words to me were profanity-laced verbal abuse at me as he jumped in the ocean."

For all those complaints, though, it seems that Reynolds himself actually played a significant part in constructing some of his more unfortunate moments during the film, with he and Hughes often brainstorming ideas over text messages.

"Ryan and I are constantly, like... if you could see our text chain between each other, it's kind of hilarious," Hughes explained. "I'd like to just frame it and put it on a wall.

"Because it's like, oh, here's an idea. And then he bounces back. And what about this? And I go, Well, what about this? What about this? And then I'll just be in fits of laughter. And we're both crying. And the next day on set, we're like putting everything in that we were texting last night."

Reynolds stars in the film alongside returning cast members Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek (as well as Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman) and that trio form something of an unusual family unit during the film.

And Hughes said that dynamic was key to creating many of the film's comedic moments, picking out a scene in which Michael Bryce finds himself comforted by Hayek's Sonia while sitting on a child's swing.

"I liked that image of Ryan being a man-child, and that's sort of peppered throughout," he said. "Certainly that scene where he's on the swing. It's like, dude, you're a 44-year-old male and you're on a child's swing being comforted by a crazy woman that kills people!"

The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard is released in cinemas on Friday 18th June 2021. Visit our Movies hub for all the latest news. Looking for something to watch tonight? Check out our TV Guide.