Is Ryan Reynolds taking a brief sabbatical from movie-making?

Ryan Reynolds has claimed he's planning to take a “little sabbatical from movie-making”.

The ‘Free Guy' star has just wrapped filming his new movie, ‘Spirited', Apple's new take on Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol', which also stars Will Ferrell and Octavia Spencer, and he has insisted he feels ready to take a brief break from filming after the “challenging” role.

Alongside snaps from the set, Ryan wrote: “Not sure I’d have been ready to say yes to a film this challenging even three years ago.

“Singing, dancing and playing in the sandbox with Will Ferrell made a whole lotta dreams come true. And this is my second film with the great @octaviaspencer…

“Perfect time for a little sabbatical from movie making. I’m gonna miss every second working with this obscenely gifted group of creators and artists.

“These days, kindness matters as much as talent. I’ve been lucky to work with folks who are flush with both. (sic)”

The 44-year-old actor plays the lead role as Ebenezer Scrooge, while ‘Elf' star Will portrays the Ghost of Christmas Present.

However, it's not known if Ryan's sabbatical comment was made in light of Sir Michael Caine clarifying this weekend that he isn't in fact retiring from acting.

As the ‘Red Notice' star's wife, Blake Lively, quipped in the comments: “Michael Caine did it first.”

Meanwhile, Ryan recently revealed he became “literate in the gaming world” before shooting ‘Free Guy'.

The Hollywood actor stars in the new sci-fi action-comedy movie – which takes place in an open-world video game – and Ryan admits that it was partially inspired by some real-life games.

He explained: “I think people will recognise elements of ‘Grand Theft Auto' and ‘Fornite' and a lot of games that … use formats not too dissimilar to this.”

Asked whether he prepared for the film by becoming more familiar with video games culture, Ryan said: “Yes and no. I mean, I became as familiar as I possibly could with the subject matter. In addition to Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, I did a draft of the script, as well as Shawn Levy. So for the writing part, for sure, you just had to be literate in the gaming world.

“But I would do it enough just to get to know it.

“But I also recognise the … kind of slippery slope because it's so much fun that you can really just … I could easily see myself just blowing off walking the kids to school and jumping into some ‘Fortnite'. So I had to walk that fine line.”