Ryan Reynolds Is Taking Watchmaking Classes

Apparently owning incredible watches wasn’t enough. Ryan Reynolds wanted to know what makes them tick.

Ryan Reynolds has made superhero movies, built businesses, owned a soccer club, and collected some seriously impressive watches.

So naturally, his next challenge involves screws so tiny they can disappear if you breathe too hard.

Reynolds recently revealed that he has started taking horology classes, learning how to take watches apart and put them back together. That means one of Hollywood’s best-known watch collectors is no longer satisfied just wearing what’s on his wrist.

He wants to know what’s happening underneath it.

And that’s where watches become a completely different hobby.

Open a mechanical movement and suddenly you’re staring at a miniature machine packed with wheels, springs, jewels, screws, and parts that seem impossibly small. One slips from your tweezers and congratulations—you’ve just scheduled the next 20 minutes of your life.

Reynolds says curiosity drew him in, particularly the unusual combination of art and engineering found inside a mechanical watch. But his relationship with watches goes back years.

In 2016, Reynolds became an international brand ambassador for Swiss watchmaker Piaget, appearing with watches such as the ultra-thin Altiplano and helping introduce the Piaget Polo S. At the time, Reynolds spoke about his appreciation for watches that were timeless, elegant, functional, and versatile.

Since then, his taste in watches appears to have gone considerably deeper.

He has been spotted wearing an Omega Speedmaster, vintage Rolex pieces including a Paul Newman-dial Daytona and Queen Midas, an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, and watches from A. Lange & Söhne. Then you get into the names that make serious collectors pay attention: F.P. Journe, Roger W. Smith, Haldimann, Simon Brette, and Bernhard Lederer.

That’s quite a journey from simply picking out a nice watch.

Then there’s the watch Reynolds was wearing while talking about his new pursuit: a Bernhard Lederer CIC 39 InVerto, a complicated mechanical creation containing more than 200 components.

That’s a bit like taking your first driving lesson and arriving in a Formula 1 car.

But maybe that’s exactly the point.

The deeper you get into watches, the less interesting the name on the dial becomes compared with what is happening behind it. You start wondering why that wheel is shaped that way, how something so small can keep running for decades, and how a watchmaker manages to put hundreds of pieces together without losing his mind—or a screw.

Reynolds has reached that stage.

He isn’t just collecting watches anymore. He’s learning the craft behind them, and in the process discovering something watchmakers have known for centuries:

Taking a watch apart is easy.

Getting every microscopic piece back where it belongs, closing the case, winding the crown…

and seeing it start ticking again?

That’s the magic.

Ryan Reynolds has spent years collecting great watches.

Now he’s collecting something you can’t simply buy.

The knowledge to understand them.