Why Rob Delaney Was Never The Same After Deadpool 2
It wasn't easy for the first "Deadpool" movie to get made. When it finally arrived, though, it boasted an oddball cast of offbeat characters like the brooding Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Deadpool's acerbic roommate Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), and nervous cab driver Dopinder (Karan Soni). Two years later, we got "Deadpool 2," and the sequel upped the ante in just about every way with a bigger budget, bigger story, and more quirky characters. In addition to the surly hunter-killer Cable (Josh Brolin) came comedian Rob Delaney as Deadpool's "X-Force" teammate, Peter.
Unlike most of his fellow heroes, however, Peter doesn't have any superpowers at all, and he isn't even all that impressive physically. He's just an upbeat, well-meaning everyman who wants to help save the world. Unfortunately, he's unceremoniously killed early in the film, but that didn't stop Delaney from becoming a fan-favorite and his character Peter a bonafide cult hero among fans. For the actor, the role of Peter was more than just another character in a random superhero movie. It was a part that changed his life forever, altering his career in ways he probably never expected. It gave a boost to his burgeoning career practically overnight, changing his fortunes and getting him mainstream attention.
Whether you heard of Delaney before "Deadpool 2" or not, you probably saw him everywhere afterward. But that's only part of the story. From his newfound star status to his sudden ability to secure a role in major franchises, Rob Delaney was never the same after "Deadpool 2."
Ryan Reynolds offered him the role of Peter without an audition
Before "Deadpool 2," actor Rob Delaney was mostly unknown outside of the British TV circuit — other than the attention he received for his hilarious Twitter account, that is. Yet Ryan Reynolds offered him the role of unpowered hero Peter without an audition. That's because Reynolds was familiar with his work on the hit U.K. series "Catastrophe" where he played an American executive who has a whirlwind romance with an Irish schoolteacher (Sharon Horgan) while on a business trip in London. (You can binge the whole series on Amazon Prime, if you fancy.) Perhaps surprisingly, Delaney accepted Reynolds' offer on the spot without even reading the script.
"Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, and he had seen 'Catastrophe,' and so he just called me, and he said, 'Hey do you wanna be in Deadpool 2?'" Delaney said on "The Big Narstie Show" in 2018. "And I said 'Yup,' [and] he's like, 'Do you wanna know what you're doing?' And I said 'Nope.'" According to Delaney, he didn't even care what the role was or how small a part it might be. "I mean, the first one made a billion dollars and was amazing, so I was like, 'Yeah man, I don't care if 'Deadpool 2's' story is me just curled up in a toilet and [you] just piss on me for two hours.'"
Delaney wound up with a slightly better role than that, and he was almost certainly right to take the job without asking. In the end, the movie was a smash hit on par with the first one and was a game-changer for Delaney's career.
Deadpool 2 ignited his movie career
Rob Delaney's movie career was pretty paltry before "Deadpool 2." He had small roles in 2007's "Wild Girls Gone" (as "Whipped Cream Ass Man") and the 2014 film "Life After Beth," in which he played an unnamed newsman. But after playing the role of the unapologetically ordinary Peter in "Deadpool 2," Delaney's star flew into the stratosphere and he quickly found himself fielding a slew of movie offers.
Since 2018, Delaney has worked on more than 15 films, with one of the more recent high-profile ones being 2024's Matthew Vaughn-directed Netflix action-comedy "Argylle" starring Henry Cavill and Bryce Dallas Howard. He also appeared in big-budget films like "Wrath of Man" and the live-action "Tom & Jerry" movie. And he's not slowing down: In addition to the "Deadpool" threequel — where he is making an unexpected reprisal following the death of his character in "Deadpool 2" — he'll also be seen in "Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger" in 2025.
Without his role in "Deadpool 2," Delaney is probably unlikely to have secured roles in most if not all of those films that have since come his way. But thanks to those projects he's been able to star alongside such Hollywood heavyweights as Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, and Charlize Theron in "Bombshell," Emma Thompson in "Last Chrismas," and Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One."
His TV career got a massive boost from Deadpool 2
Rob Delaney's role as underdog X-Force member Peter didn't just make him a star at the movies. The attention he received for "Deadpool 2" also got him increased notice on the small screen, where he was already having hits. Though he'd appeared on quite a few shows before joining Fox's X-universe in 2018, his career really exploded afterward, and after "Catastrophe" ended, Delaney began starring in bigger and bigger shows. At first, it was a lot of voicework, with roles in "Meet the Meerkats" and "Fairfax," but in 2022 he took a major role in the Amazon Prime series "The Man Who Fell to Earth," the TV reboot of the classic David Bowie film.
In 2023, Delaney was cast for an episode of the wildly popular sci-fi anthology "Black Mirror," appearing in "Joan Is Awful" alongside Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek, Michael Cera, and Himesh Patel. He also made a pair of appearances in "The Power," the Amazon Prime series starring Toni Collette, Halle Bush, and Toheeb Jimoh. Delaney has also graced our ears with a plethora of animated voice roles, including in the series "Invincible," "Harvey Birdman" spin-off "Birdgirl," and "Fairfax." In 2024 he began a recurring role on the Freevee original, "Dinner with the Parents."
He finally became a star in his native country
For those less familiar with Rob Delaney's life and career, the "Deadpool 2" actor hails from Boston and attended college at New York University. But in 2014, Delaney left the U.S. for the United Kingdom with his wife, where they built a life and family. Delaney became a successful actor in England, often appealing on comedy programs and panel shows like "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown," "Would I Lie to You?," and 2016's "The Big Fat Quiz of the Year," all of which are U.K. favorites. Despite the success of "Catastrophe" in the U.K., Delaney never really had a lot of success stateside.
All of that changed, however, with "Deadpool 2." For the first time, Delaney was a star in America, appearing in a major Hollywood summer blockbuster. After years of being nearly exclusively popular in the U.K., the comedian and actor suddenly found himself showing up on American publicity machines like "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," "Late Night with Seth Meyers," and "The Late Late Show with James Corden." After "Deadpool 2," he soon became a regular face in other major Hollywood fare.
Rob Delaney was no longer a stranger to franchises after Deadpool 2
Sure, Rob Delaney was able to parlay his appearance in "Deadpool 2" into a bigger career, both on TV and at the movies. But it goes beyond just getting more acting work in general — because Delaney is also getting much bigger work. His role as the mighty mustachioed Peter in "Deadpool 2" was the most high-profile project he'd ever been involved with, but before long, his offers just kept getting bigger. And that indeed meant more franchise films, with another coming just a year later when he landed the role of Agent Loeb in "Fast & The Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw," which put him next to action superstars like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jason Statham, and Idris Elba, not to mention Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren.
That wasn't the end of Delaney's sharp turn into franchises, because the biggest was still to come. After joining the "Home Alone" reboot on Disney+, "Home Sweet Home Alone," Delaney took a small role as a JSOC agent in Tom Cruise's "Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One." And he was back at it again with "Deadpool & Wolverine," joining the cast unexpectedly in May 2023. It's unlikely he's done with blockbusters anytime soon, either, as producers seem to love the effortless charm he brings to just about any role.
Peter (and Rob Delaney) gained a cult following
When Rob Delaney was first cast in "Deadpool 2," many fans likely scratched their heads at what probably seemed like a left-field casting choice. After all, the actor wasn't a big name and didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd get a role in a raunchy, big-budget superhero adventure full of over-the-top characters. Delaney plays Peter, an ordinary man recruited to a superhero team despite no powers and a naive, happy-go-lucky attitude. Thanks to Delaney's performance, though, both Peter and Delaney earned a cult following.
The studio must have quickly figured out how popular the character would become, because their social media team started a fake Twitter account for Peter that became the buzz of the internet. Things went viral quickly; before long, there were fan-made posters and cosplays of Delaney's character that put him in the spotlight over the title character — and that was before the film was even released.
When "Deadpool 2" finally hit theaters, audiences weren't disappointed, as Peter was a highlight of the film. It wasn't just Peter's outsider status either that made him so lovable. In large part due to the scene-stealing performance from Delaney, fans continued to rally around the character, who proved so beloved that there was even brief buzz that he might get his own spin-off, while Ryan Reynolds even joked that a follow-up might be titled "Deadpool 3: Absolutely Peter."
Finding huge success in Hollywood made him a better father
Rob Delaney, by all accounts, isn't after fame and fortune, preferring instead to live a quiet, easy life. Yet his delayed stardom may have actually been a good thing for him. "My success came a little later," Delaney said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2021. "Nobody knew my name before I turned 39, and I think that's great." His increased profile and sudden major movie offers didn't just improve his life financially, though. The later-in-life prosperity also helped gave him perspective when it came to his personal life.
"Now it's about slow and steady and building a career that allows me to do what I have learned, very painfully, is the most important thing — which is to be a dad," he said. For Delaney, there's nothing more important than being a father, a role that became even more important to him after losing his 2-year-old son to cancer in early 2018, just a few months before the release of "Deadpool 2." He admitted, though, that once he's an empty-nester, he'll take any offer that comes his way. "The goal is to turn on the TV and be, like, 'Oh, him again.' So it's quality now, quantity later."
Deadpool 2 completely changed his perspective on his career
Living a quiet, simple life may have been easy for Rob Delaney when he was less well-known. But with the release of "Deadpool 2," instead of becoming a spoiled star, Delaney found perspective from his newfound fame. "Not long ago, it was me taking the bus to go do stand-up while my wife was the breadwinner teaching at a public school," he told Vulture in 2019. The sudden attention didn't get to him, instead just making him laugh at the ludicriousness of it all. "It happened so quickly for us as to be silly," he revealed. "Now I know it's just a joke and a game. The more successful I've gotten, the more I've been like, 'Oh God, this is so rotten what's happening.'"
Bigger fame, however, hasn't made him hate success, and he's managed to find life lessons that bring him even more down to earth. Now, he takes life by the horns. "Even the people I love most are gonna die, and they could die before me," he told Vulture. "Which is just bulls***. ... Since I know that could happen today — I could slip and bang my head, and that would be it — I want to make stuff that is a small, positive contribution."
He's used his higher profile to support political causes he cares about
Some celebrities in Hollywood prefer to keep their politics to themselves while others are loud and outspoken, whether it's the progressive politics of Jane Fonda, Mark Ruffalo, and Danny Glover or the vocally right-wing Clint Eastwood, Jon Voight, and Jim Caviezel. "Deadpool 2" star Rob Delaney wears his politics on his sleeve, and since he became a star its become even more important to him that he used his platform to promote the causes he cares about. As a U.K. resident, that often means supporting the country's social democrat Labour Party, even campaigning on behalf of former party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Some of his support for the left-wing political party is the result of dealing with his young son's cancer diagnosis. Having grown up in the United States, he'd seen firsthand the stark differences between American and U.K. healthcare. "What was amazing about having a child get very sick here, and then sicker, and then disabled, and then ultimately die, is that as nightmarish as that was and still is, it didn't bankrupt us," he told Esquire. "Nor did we have the fear while he was sick that it would, which so many Americans have."
Delaney has also used his larger platform and name recognition — thanks to "Deadpool 2" — to advocate for reform in the film industry. In 2023, he was a vocal ally of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes in Hollywood and helped rally support a half a world away in England, penning an op-ed for Jacobin and speaking at public events.
The role of Peter earned him his first-ever sequel
These days, it might seem like every actor under the sun is doing sequels and spin-offs, reprising iconic roles over and over again. Even auteur thespian Joaquin Phoenix, who we once thought would never do a sequel, came back to the role of Arthur Fleck for "Joker: Folie à Deux." But for years, returning to a character for Rob Delaney meant another season of "Catastrophe" or new episodes of cartoon where he'd voiced a regular. That all changed thanks to "Deadpool 2."
Despite the love for the character among fans — and the rest of the cast — it wasn't a sure thing that Delaney would be returning for a third "Deadpool" movie. After all, Peter's role was a minor one and seemed more like a one-note gag about an ordinary man thrust into the middle of a superhero team. But the film's post-credits scene made it clear that it was at least a possibility, as after Peter's horrific death early in the film, a post-credits stinger sees Wade Wilson using time travel to bring both his girlfriend (Morena Baccarin) and Peter back from the dead. Either way, it was to everyone's delight when Delaney was announced to be coming back, and many fans rejoiced when he turned up in the film's first trailer.
Could this be the beginning of more sequels for Delaney? With another "Mission: Impossible" on the way, it's possible he could be back in that franchise sooner than later as well. Personally, we're calling for him to headline his own MCU adventure. No matter what the role, though, we can all agree that the world needs more Delaney.