Karan Soni Says Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Wolverine Is a Fresh Story

Fans are anxiously awaiting Deadpool & Wolverine, and actor Karan Soni knows it will be worth the wait.

Soni, 35, who portrays cab driver Dopinder in all three Deadpool films, exclusively told Us Weekly that Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s script is “really good” and is coming at the “right time” for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

“Ryan has worked really, really hard on it,” Son told Us, joking that he could reveal “absolutely nothing” about the movie while at the MPTF NextGen Annual Summer Party 2024 on June 23. “It’s a long time coming, but it was one of those things — where because it was such a long time — it’s gotten really good. The script was really good. It was in a very good place.”

Soni noted that Jackman, 55, signing on to revamp his character Wolverine was a huge boost to the storyline.

“There was a version of [the script] before Hugh Jackman said yes,” Soni recalled. “Because they waited because he said yes — I think it’s all the things combining and I think it’s coming at the right time for the MCU, which is in need of something fresh. And I would not bet against Ryan.”

Deadpool & Wolverine is set to hit theaters on July 26 after experiencing filming delays due to the SAG-AFTRA strike last year. The Shawn Levy directed film marks Jackman’s return as Wolverine after his character died at the end of the 2017 film Logan.

Reynolds, 47, has been excited about the upcoming Deadpool installation, and he revealed a special gift of a ping-pong table from his wife, Blake Lively, helped him and Jackman create the script.

“Boy, did we play some ping-pong,” Reynolds told Vanity Fair during an interview published on Monday, June 24, to which Jackman agreed, “It gets you out of your head, it wakes you up.”

Reynolds shared a photo via Instagram on Monday of himself and Jackman laughing in their Marvel costumes while playing ping-pong, and he shared the personal significance of the game.

“Blake [is] the real reason these ping-pong photos came about. She and I have a bunch of these prints of actors playing it on their sets,” Reynolds told the outlet. “We’ve got [Paul] Newman and [Robert] Redford in Durango, Mexico, during the shooting of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We’ve got Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, I think in the ’30s. We have Olivia de Havilland playing ping-pong, Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman playing. Joan Crawford. So, Blake sent the ping-pong table to Pinewood Studios.”

Levy, 55, agreed ping-pong photos are “treasures,” adding of their personal experience on set, “It was very hard work, but it was fun every day because we were doing it with buddies.”