It was a first for Bedford’s Ryan Reynolds, who allowed a video crew to capture his colonoscopy screening on camera to raise awareness of the increase in colon cancer diagnoses among people under 50.

“It’s not every day that you can raise awareness about something that will most definitely save lives. That’s enough motivation for me to let you in on a camera being shoved up my a–,” Reynolds said in the video they shared with the public.

Actor Rob McElhenney, who created and starred in the long-running comedy “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” teamed up with Reynolds on the project and also underwent a videotaped colonoscopy.

“If they find a polyp, it’s either bigger than his – which is awesome – or it’s smaller than his, which means I have less of an opportunity to have cancer. Either way I win,” McElhenney told the camera while waiting for his procedure.

While joking around and poking fun at each other, Reynolds and McElhenney made it clear they were there to raise awareness about new guidelines lowering the age of colon screening from 50 to 45.

“Rob and I both, we turned 45 this year,” Reynolds said in the video. “And you know, part of being this age is getting a colonoscopy. It’s a simple step that could literally – and I mean, literally – save your life.”

Reynolds and McElhenney are cochairs of the Welsh Football Club Wrexham AFC, a fifth-division soccer club founded in 1864 in a dying mining town in Wales. The two invested in the club to bring life back to the community. The journey inspired a docuseries on FX called “Welcome to Wrexham.”

Colorectal cancer is the third most frequently diagnosed cancer in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.