Ryan Reynolds and Colin Hanks Track Down Dan Aykroyd for John Candy
Ryan Reynolds and Colin Hanks eventually tracked down Dan Aykroyd and recorded the eulogy that opens john candy documentary John Candy: I Like Me. Reynolds said the team could not find Aykroyd at first, and the film had to work around a rough cut built on a bad impression of his voice.
The Prime Video documentary centers on Candy’s 1994 death at age 43 and opens with the speech Aykroyd gave at a private Los Angeles memorial service. Hanks said that choice was meant to put Candy’s heart on screen within the first few minutes, not save it for later.
Dan Aykroyd’s missing eulogy
Reynolds said, “We couldn’t find Dan Aykroyd to save our lives,” and added, “And we couldn’t get his voice to record it.” That left the production with a placeholder that Reynolds described this way: “The voice on the rough cut was a bad impression of him.”
The fix came only after the filmmakers finally located Aykroyd and got him to record the eulogy. Reynolds said, “Eventually, we tracked him down, and he recorded the eulogy.” He also said, “It became as vivid as the day he delivered it the first time.”
Toronto and Los Angeles memory
The search for Aykroyd mattered because the Los Angeles funeral was not recorded, so the memorial speech had to be rebuilt from memory and performance rather than pulled from an archive. A much larger memorial service later held in Toronto was recorded, but Hanks and Reynolds wanted the private Los Angeles words to lead the film.
Hanks said, “Dan Aykroyd wrote such a beautiful eulogy for John, and it just felt like that was such a beautiful way to start the film.” He added, “To remind people of his grace, his wit, his charm.” The opening becomes the film’s organizing choice: Candy is introduced through the grief and admiration of the people who knew him best, not through a standard career recap.
Bill Murray and the cast list
Bill Murray was also difficult to track down, but the filmmakers eventually got him to participate. The documentary also lined up Mel Brooks, Macaulay Culkin, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Tom Hanks, and Catherine O’Hara, giving the project a wide bench of comedy and film voices around Candy’s legacy.
Ryan Reynolds said Candy still shapes his own work, adding, “He means everything to me,” and that “Every Deadpool movie features an Easter egg devoted to John Candy.” For viewers, the immediate payoff is clear: the film is built around one recovered speech and a cluster of major interviewees, so the opening minutes carry the weight of the entire project.
