Ryan Reynolds says he doesn't want to be an 'absentee' dad by working on 'Deadpool' franchise

• Ryan Reynolds opened up about the future of "Deadpool."
• He explained that producing the Marvel action-comedy "swallows" his "whole life."
• He added that he didn't want to miss out on spending time with his 4 kids, whom he shares with Blake Lively.

Ryan Reynolds is feeling the dad guilt.

On today's episode of Variety's "Actors on Actors" with Andrew Garfield, the actor opened up about balancing work and parenting.

When Garfield asked Reynolds what the future of "Deadpool" looks like, Reynolds said he didn't know. "My feeling is that that character works very well in two ways: one is scarcity and surprise."

"Deadpool & Wolverine" was released in July, six years after "Deadpool 2." "Deadpool" was first released in 2016.

Part of the reason for the six-year gap after "Deadpool 2" was because it "swallows" his "whole life," said Reynolds, who played the title character and was a producer and writer on the show.

"You can't take your hand off the stick all the way through development, through post-production, into marketing and promo," he said.

Reynolds has four kids, whom he shares with Blake Lively.

"I don't ever want to be on a first-name basis with any of them. No, I don't ever want to be absentee, and I don't ever want to miss stuff," he said. "I, like, kind of die inside when I see their face, and they have a competition or sports thing or something, and I missed it."

In August, Lively shared a similar sentiment on balancing work and family.

"When you're working, sometimes you feel guilty for, you know, not being in your personal life in those hours you're at work," Lively told Entertainment Tonight. "And then when you're at work, you feel guilty by being distracted by wishing that you were at your personal life," she said.

In February, the "It Ends With Us" actor said that she and Reynolds agreed "not to work at the same time" when they started dating.

Juggling work and family is "like a circus act with no intermission," well-being experts previously told Business Insider.

Veronica West, a psychologist and the founder of "My Thriving Mind," said that instead of dividing work and personal time into "neat, equal slices," she said that a better way is to think about it as "work-life rhythm."

"The trick is learning how to balance energy, not just time, so you're surviving and enjoying each part of your day," she said.

A representative for Reynolds did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.