‘It's like the difference between driving a Toyota Camry and a Ferrari,’ Justin Baldoni, star of It Ends With Us, says of working with his ‘powerhouse’ co-star Blake Lively on the set of the new film.
‘You know, you're acting with somebody who's a Ferrari of an actor,’ he says in a game of Ask Me Anything with ELLE UK. ‘You move a little bit and then they respond, and it really was incredible just in terms of helping me craft the performance. She touched so many aspects of this production, and everything she touched she made better. She's so responsive and she's so reactive.’
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Colleen Hoover’s 2016 smash hit novel It Ends With Us follows Lily Bloom (Lively) who is recently out of college and struggling over the death of her abusive father as she passionately falls for Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni). But as his dark side surfaces, she finds herself trapped in a cycle of abuse reminiscent of her childhood.
Amid the turmoil, her first love Atlas Corrigan, (Brandon Sklenar) reappears, reigniting old feelings and offering her a glimpse of the life she once dreamed of. Torn between a toxic present and a hopeful past, Lily must find the strength to break free and protect herself and her future.
Thanks to a rebirth on TikTok, the book outsold The Bible in 2022 and with an estimate of 30 million sales worldwide since its publication in 2016, the internet has been fiercely protective of it ever since.
When Lively and Baldoni’s casting was first announced, there was fan backlash over the fact that she is more than a decade older than the 23-year-old protagonist, who is a college graduate in the novel. Similarly, Baldoni is ten years older than his 30-year-old book counterpart.
‘I felt a lot of apprehension,’ admits Baldoni, whose main mission when adapting the novel was to honour survivors of abuse and generational trauma, as well as Hoover and her mother who inspired it. ‘I don't think I would be human if I didn't.'
‘I first read the book over five years ago. By the end, I was just in tears, sobbing like snot coming out of my nose. My wife looks over at me like, “Are you okay?". I was so moved by Lily's story and I just thought that this could be a film, and if done right, it could really help a lot of people. So we began this process,’ he notes.
Initially, Baldoni had no plans to star in his own movie until Hoover planted the seed. ‘I was just planning on directing it,’ he says. ‘But when we were optioning the book, Colleen sent me an email and just said, “Have you ever thought about also acting in it, maybe considering Ryle?” That got me thinking - if she thought I could do it, then maybe I could.'
Lively’s outing as Lily marks her first film lead in four years, during which time she and husband Ryan Reynolds welcomed baby number four, a son Olin, who joins sisters James, Inez, and Betty.
Baldoni says that one of the biggest challenges he faced as filmmaker on the project was navigating personalities, but credits this raw energy with making movie magic. ‘It’s very challenging to act and direct, and especially with a project like this,' he says. 'There was a lot of pressure playing such a complex role like Ryle and, of course, as a filmmaker, you're always navigating personalities.
‘There are all these things that happen every day on set, there's always friction that happens when you make a movie like this. Then at the end of the day, it's that friction, I believe, that creates the beautiful art,' he says. 'Everything in life needs friction to grow. And look, we created something so beautiful and so magical, and it was hard, and it was worth it at the same time. And I grew so much as both a filmmaker, an actor and as a person throughout this experience.’
Watch the rest of Justin Baldoni's Ask Me Anything interview at the top of this article.
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