Critics' Choice Awards: Ryan Reynolds is Entertainer of the Year

Let’s hear it for the actor Sandra Bullock called “the Ryan Reynolds of his generation” (according to Ryan Reynolds)!

On Sunday, Reynolds took the stage at the 22nd annual Critics’ Choice Awards to accept the honor of being EW’s Entertainer of the Year. The Deadpool actor, who was nominated for two awards that night, delivered a surprisingly touching speech in which he dedicated his award to two non-profits fighting cancer.

“The character had cancer and some of the people that this character resonated with was sick kids. So I would like to dedicate this honor to the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the SickKids Foundation of Toronto, two incredible organizations that do so much for so many kids in need,” said Reynolds, who also dedicated the award to two of his friends who passed away from cancer. “They started a fight and it’s up to us to finish it.”

Ever self-aware, Reynolds made a dig at himself, describing his Deadpool character as a “sex-positive superhero” that was “running around in a big red body condom in the midst of a highly militarized shame spiral.”

This was a meaningful award for Reynolds because he spent 11 years trying to get the movie Deadpool made. However, he didn’t think it would be as successful as it was. “I knew that this was going to speak to the very core of the Deadpool fan base, and I knew they would embrace it. I think it just really landed at a fortunate time. We were right at ‘peak superhero,’ particularly in the sense that the superheroes were all intermittingly clenching their jaw muscles and brooding. Deadpool came along and sort of threw all that on its ass,” he recently told EW.

Watch the entire speech above.

For more on Reynolds’ year, pick up the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly on sale now.