Warning: This article contains spoilers for Free Guy!
While character named Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who goes through an existential crisis when he discovers that he’s an NPC (non-player character) whose life is mapped out by a program. With Reynolds taking on a more light-hearted, optimistic take with his character, Guy becomes a sensation for players of Free City, which leads to further characters within the game being modeled after Reynolds’ main protagonist.
Toward the end of Free Guy, Free City’s creator Antwan (Taika Waititi) tries using both his coders and new programs to try to kill Guy, who is intent on retrieving the source code that proves Antwan stole the game from Millie and Keys. After Mo fails to kill Guy, Antwan sends in Dude, an unfinished, massive, muscular version of Guy being developed for Free City 2. Dude, who has the same face and voice as Guy but with a very different body, ultimately fails in killing Guy when Ryan Reynolds’ Disney protagonist puts player glasses on the unfinished character.
Although Reynolds is credited as portraying Dude in Free Guy, it’s only his superimposed face and voice acting that went into creating Dude. In reality, Dude was played by Reynolds’ body double Aaron W. Reed, a bodybuilder and former WWE professional wrestler. The 6’7” athlete is putting his remarkable size to use in Hollywood, with the hit film Free Guy being his fifth major US production. While Reed’s face isn’t used for Dude, he can also be seen in episodes of French Connection, Dawn of the Zombie Apocalypse, NCIS: Los Angeles, Porus, and Jane the Virgin.
Surprisingly, Free Guy's box-office smash film isn’t Reed’s only collaboration with comedy actor Ryan Reynolds. Dude’s body double actor played Satan in Match.com’s viral 2020 commercial, in which his character falls in love with another soul-crushing figure: The year 2020. The ad, which also featured the re-recorded version of Taylor Swift’s song “Love Story,” was made by Ryan Reynolds’ production company Maximum Effort. Since Reynolds and Reed had just spent plenty of time together making Free Guy, it makes sense that the actor recruited the bodybuilder to star in his comedic commercial. This time, the character was only played by Reed, with no technological facial capture or voice acting on behalf of Ryan Reynolds.
Since Dude became a fan-favorite character after Free Guy’s happy ending, it’s safe to say that he’ll return alongside Reynolds’ protagonist Guy if the characters come back for Free Guy 2. While Free Guy 2 hasn’t been officially announced, Reynolds tweeted back in August 2021 that Disney confirmed their intentions to make a sequel, suggesting it’s only a matter of time before the crew aligns their schedules and puts together an enjoyable script. Considering Ryan Reynolds hasn’t become a bodybuilder or grown to be 6’7” since the end of Free Guy, it seems the franchise's future will require Aaron W. Reed to reprise his role as Dude’s body double while still keeping Reynolds’ face on the lovable character.
