What makes a city livable? Abu Dhabi residents hear culture is key to keeping young people

For Abu Dhabi residents, the question raised at this week’s LiveX conference cuts closer to home than any celebrity headline: what actually makes a city worth living in. Ryan Reynolds, speaking Tuesday at the three-day gathering at Adnec, argued that culture is not a luxury add-on but a measure of a city’s health, one that shapes whether younger generations stay or leave.

“When you’re bringing that and you’re creating eccentricity as well, suddenly you have yourself a boom town,” the Canadian actor and producer told the audience.

That framing matters because LiveX itself is built around everyday liveability, not entertainment. The conference brings together government officials, developers, investors and international experts to tackle questions that affect residents directly: rapid population growth, shifting demographics, and how people move through their cities. Reynolds, known globally for the Deadpool films, was there to talk about what makes communities thrive, not to promote a project.

His comments land at a moment when Abu Dhabi’s cultural landscape, especially on Saadiyat Island, is visibly expanding for anyone who visits. Louvre Abu Dhabi, teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum and Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi already sit there. On December 11, the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens, becoming the largest museum in the Guggenheim network. It will house art from the 1960s to today, including work by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, shown alongside artists from the Arab world, Africa and Asia who have historically received less international attention. For residents, that means a new, free-standing cultural resource entering daily civic life, not just a tourist draw.

Reynolds, who grew up in Vancouver and co-owns Welsh football club Wrexham AFC, tied thriving communities to a clear sense of identity. “I think of communities that function and thrive, and it’s usually because they have a very healthy sense of self,” he said. “They have an identity, a strong pride in what they are and something that they believe in.” That is a civic argument as much as a cultural one: places that know what they stand for tend to hold onto the people who live there.

Much of the rest of the conversation turned to his own creative process. Reynolds said he sees himself as a storyteller rather than a conventional actor. “I don’t think of myself as an actor in the sense that you won’t see me playing a 15th-century Dutch impressionist in a movie because I would laugh myself off that film set,” he said. “But I do consider myself a storyteller.”

That mindset shapes how he works on set. While filming the Deadpool movies, credited as a writer on two of them, Reynolds said he tracks camera positions, visual effects and dialogue rewrites all while acting. “I’m in like 50 places at once, which is why I’m not a pure actor,” he said. “I’m looking at the whole thing all at once and it’s like a symphony. And it sounds great, but it’s a living, breathing hell.” He called that split attention “an incredible gift” that lets him “see things that I wouldn’t otherwise see.”

He traced the habit back to childhood, when he says he was always anticipating what might happen next. “You’re constantly jumping into the future thinking, ‘what’s the threat? What could happen?’” he said. “You’re inventing entire storylines, and all of this is actually a form of creativity.”

That same instinct shapes how he collaborates with other writers. He said he often floats an idea by calling it “the bad version” first, a way of lowering the stakes. “I want to give him permission to dissent,” he said. “I want him to say, ‘No, that’s terrible. What if we did that and this?’ And then suddenly you’re building something amazing.”

Admitting uncertainty, he said, matters as much as having answers. “Most people I know who are really good at stuff or [have] accomplished something have 80 per cent more stuff that they’ve failed at,” he said. “When you say, ‘I don’t know,’ you co-opt other people’s goodwill and patience. And I love that.”

Mina Rzouki contributed to this report.