Melissa Joan Hart And Ryan Reynolds Were *This* Close To Dating In The '90s

There was some ~magic~ happening on the set of "Sabrina The Teenage Witch."
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Long before he was Deadpool or the proud Mr. Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds was a young actor cast as the bad boy love interest of Melissa Joan Hart in the 1996 TV movie “Sabrina The Teenage Witch.”

Here he is tossing a volleyball to Sabrina while rocking some very ‘90s, very bouncy surfer hair:

Though their characters don’t end up together in the movie, there was apparently some real-life magic happening between Hart and Reynolds on set.

“We were smitten and cute,” the 40-year-old actress said on Australia’s “Studio 10 talk show last week. “He was adorable. He was a really nice guy.”

The teenage romance wasn’t meant to be, though.

“I had a boyfriend at the time,” she explained. “[He] probably would have been a great boyfriend. And I didn’t end up with the other guy, so maybe I should have taken a chance!”

“He wasn’t like, the Ryan Reynolds everybody knows these days,” she said. “You can see in the clip the crazy hair. He was sweet — he was very sweet.”

Hart and Reynolds ran into each other again in 1999, at MTV’s 10th Annual Rock ‘n Jock Baseball Game in Los Angeles. (Can an event get any more ‘90s sounding than that?)
Jeff Kravitz via Getty Images
Hart and Reynolds ran into each other again in 1999, at MTV’s 10th Annual Rock ‘n Jock Baseball Game in Los Angeles. (Can an event get any more ‘90s sounding than that?)

Hart’s recent admission about Reynolds sounds a lot more tame than what she described to E! host Guiliana Rancic in 2014.

As the ‘90s TV queen told it then, the two shared a little makeout sesh after Reynolds bought her a Bulova watch on their last day of shooting.

“I chased him down, got in front of his car and just kissed him and then made out with him all night,” she said. “Then I had to call my boyfriend the next day and explain it.”

Then what happened? Clarissa, explain it all!

“[Ryan] came to New York to visit me,” she said.“But I think he wanted something more but I decided I was going to stick with my boyfriend.”

Oh. Well, that was anticlimactic.

Though Reynolds hasn’t commented on the on-set romance, his wife Blake Lively is apparently aware of the kiss.

“She did know, actually,” Hart told People magazine when asked about it last year. “She reached out to me via email to help her with a birthday present for Ryan!”

Hm, maybe a Bulova watch?

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