Ryan Reynolds recently made it his business to help turn around the career of Monica Ruiz — the actress from the widely panned commercial about a husband who gifts his wife a Peloton exercise bike for Christmas — by giving her the followup gig of a lifetime: a leading role in one of his Aviation Gin commercials.
On Thursday’s “Tonight Show,” the “6 Underground” star explained to host Jimmy Fallon how “within a few hours of her ad” Reynolds and his team had tracked down Ruiz — which was not an easy task — to try to get her to participate in the ad, which you can watch here.
“I’ve been there in that position as an actor where you do something that doesn’t quite work. And I really wish somebody from a gin company called me right after ‘Green Lantern’ and was like, ‘Hey, I got something funny you could do as an answer to that,’” Reynolds said.
The “Detective Pikachu” star says it “was really difficult” to find Ruiz, “because nobody knew how to get ahold of her” and “obviously the people at Peloton didn’t want us to get ahold of her (laughs).”
But they did it, and “within 36 hours we had shot, chopped and put out this commercial,” Reynolds said.
Fallon hopes that Ruiz’s role in Reynolds’ gin ad leads to bigger and better things: “I hope she gets hired more because of what you did.”
“I hope so too!” Reynolds added.
Watch the interview above.
“6 Underground” is streaming now on Netflix.