WATCH: Detective Pikachu's Ryan Reynolds and his co-stars dream cast Pokémon characters

Last year, Ryan Reynolds was reprising his role as Deadpool and taking on the Avengers at the box office. This year, Reynolds is challenging the Avengers again ... except this time, he's playing the most hard-boiled Pokémon of them all: Detective Pikachu!

When SYFY WIRE caught up with Ryan, he expressed his admiration for the way director Rob Letterman brought out the human elements of the story.

"It works great for people who don't know that much about Pokémon," said Reynolds. "That's just smart filmmaking. That has nothing to do with me. That's our great, crack producing team ... [and] Rob Letterman."

Reynolds also enjoyed the way the role allowed him to bring his own sense of humor to this talking Pikachu.

"That stuff I loved, I think that's sort of why they hired me," related Reynolds. "I just get to go play. I mean, my job was weird, though. 99% of what I did was in a motion capture studio. The first three days of shooting, I was just on set to feel what Justice [Smith] would be doing and Kathryn [Newton] would be doing, mostly to learn them a little bit. And they were doing the same for me."

Because we also spoke with Smith, Newton, and Letterman, we couldn't resist asking them to share their dream casting picks for other Pokémon characters.

"I love the idea of taking the most powerful superhuman actor ever to do the cutest Squirtle," said Letterman. "You know, Dwayne Johnson doing some Squirtle."

"I would really like to see Reese Witherspoon as a Pokémon," added Newton. "Which one? Charizard!"

For the rest of their picks, and more details about the making of Detective Pikachu, check out the entire video!