You Have to Watch a 14-Year-Old Ryan Reynolds in ‘Fifteen’ on Prime Video

From charming Sandra Bullock in The Proposal to kicking super-villain ass in the Deadpool movies to getting serious in the thriller Safe House, it seems like Ryan Reynolds really can do it all. He can even bring that charm to the small screen, as fans of his late ’90s sitcom Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place know all too well. But Reynolds’ career stretches back even further than that hangout sitcom. It turns out Ryan Reynolds also has experience getting dramatic in an all-ages setting on a teen show, because his first ever regular acting gig was the high school drama Fifteen.

Love Ryan Reynolds and don’t remember Fifteen? You’re in luck, because all 13 episodes of Season 1 are now streaming on Prime Video. Produced and originally aired in Canada as Hillside, the totally-not-DeGrassi show was added to Nickelodeon’s iconic early ’90s schedule as Fifteen. Compared to its popular American-made contemporaries Clarissa Explains It All and the short-lived Salute Your Shorts, shows that also debuted on Nick in 1991, Fifteen is a lost artifact of a very definitive era.

The show is exactly what you think a 1991 high school drama aimed at tweens would be: it stars a bunch of actual teens and puts them in very soap-y predicaments. There are plotlines about divorce, bullying, gossip, even alcoholism! Also all the action takes place between classes, adults are rarely (possibly never) seen, and the students seem to be able to come and go from an in-school (?) soda shop as they please. If you want a taste of just how 1991 this show is, just watch the opening credits.

If you saw this for the first time not knowing Fifteen was a thing, you would 100% believe this was a Too Many Cooks style sendup of early ’90s shows. The thing is, I totally remember Fifteen as the show that was definitely too mature for my seven-year-old self. Legit, Matt’s storyline taught me about alcoholism at an age when I still actively played Ninja Turtles. And I can’t forget Brooke, my first ever exposure to the shit-stirring bad girl who lives for drama TV character.

Reynolds, who was one of only four actors to stick with the show for its entire 65-episode run, plays the crappy young Billy Simpson. He’s an annoying little brother, aspiring bad boy, burgeoning drummer, and sometime prankster–you could totally watch Fifteen as Deadpool’s highly sanitized origin story and I think it would work just fine. Deadpool fanfic aside, Fifteen is Chapter One in the Ryan Reynolds saga, and Prime Video is gonna get you all caught up.

Stream Fifteen on Prime Video