Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenney break ‘terrible & boring money grab’ mould with ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ documentary – but Hollywood superstars are still nervous without a script

The surge in interest that football has enjoyed around the world, as streaming services continue to grow in popularity, has seen a number of teams invite cameras behind the scenes. Lids have been lifted on life at the training ground and in sweary dressing rooms across the globe.

Not all of those series have been a success, with some considered to have been pieced together for the sake of it, but Wrexham – with their Hollywood co-owners at the helm – have shown how a production that covers both professional and personal lives can deliver healthy sporting and financial rewards.

McElhenney has told The Athletic of making something with substance alongside Reynolds, with the pair still getting nervous in a production that involves no scripts: “You can turn on Disney, Hulu or Netflix and find hundreds, if not thousands, of documentaries on sports. Some are really engaging, but some are terrible and boring and seem as if it was a money grab instead of actually trying to tell a story.

“It’s really hard to have a camera shoved in your face all the time or to wear a microphone. People think that since you’re an actor, it must be easy. It really isn’t. It’s terrifying for us and for the players.

“The only way you’re going to get that level of authenticity is if you are willing to bare it all. There are plenty of times I’m sitting in an editing room and when I rewatch some footage, I sometimes look petulant or not like the kind of person that I would want to put out into the world. I realise if I don’t put that in the show, then people will smell that out. They will see this is inauthentic, that I’m creating some sort of propaganda piece.

“You can’t manipulate it. You can’t create it from nothing. If you ask the right questions and people are willing to give truthful answers to those questions, there’s a wellspring of stories in every community across the world. You just have to know how to tell it.”

‘Welcome to Wrexham’ has covered a wild adventure in North Wales that saw Reynolds and McElhenney – who are now also involved with teams in Mexico and Colombia – complete a stunning takeover in 2021, before overseeing back-to-back promotions in a bid to one day reach the Premier League Promised Land.