'It Ends With Us' Interviews With Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Brandon Sklenar & More

Cinema Blend

Author Colleen Hoover's worldwide phenomenon “It Ends With Us” is now a feature film of the same name, so CinemaBlend’s Riley Utley sat down with stars Blake Lively, Jenny Slate and Brandon Sklenar, as well as director/star Justin Baldoni, producer Alex Saks and Hoover herself to discuss all our pressing questions about the project. That includes changes from the book to the film, opening up casting opportunities to the fans, and their approach to tackling such sensitive material.

Transcript

00:00I understood why she loved the people that she loved, why she was hurt by the people she was hurt,

00:04why she makes good decisions, why she makes bad decisions, why she makes great decisions,

00:09and her victories feel like your victories when she has those moments, and her pain feels like

00:14your pain. I was wondering what you wanted to put into your performance to kind of let the

00:29audience into her inner monologue that we get in the book that we don't necessarily get to see in the

00:34movie. Yeah, oh, that's an interesting question. Thank you so much for asking. I mean, Colleen

00:38wrote a book that had such a clear emotional journey that I completely understood why Lily

00:44made the decisions that she made. I think this movie feels first person. I don't think it feels

00:50like you're an objective party watching and observing Lily. I feel like you're very much

00:55with Lily on this journey, and every decision we made, you know, whether it be music or whether

01:02it be color or whether it be narrative, it was all to let you into Lily's feelings and her journey.

01:12When you guys were reading the book, was there a line or a detail that you like wanted to make sure

01:16made it into the film? The way Colleen writes is like fan favorite lines, you know, like, okay,

01:22this is a, you're not like, oh, I hope I guess, you know, like there, there are some like greatest

01:27hits. Um, but also it was just more about capturing the spirit of, um, of these people and capturing the

01:34heart of these people and, um, doing it in the most authentic way. And we were all given, um, uh, a level

01:40of like, uh, freedom to inhabit the characters, um, in a way that felt most authentic and real and raw

01:48and honest. And I think you feel that like, we're not trying to do like a caricature of something we

01:53think someone might want. We're really just trying to make these people as living and breathing and

01:59real as like your friends and your loved ones as, as possible. The moment where Alyssa walks in

02:06and meets Lily, like to me, it's in that moment. And also it was like to relieve a little bit of

02:12pressure to just, you know, like, I don't want to disappoint the fans, which is like a very real

02:16thing. The fact that it's fleeting and storytelling and sign me up. Wonderful. Thanks. You can feel in

02:21the writing in the book that like, there's something between these two people. And I really wanted to

02:27make sure that I delivered that and that, um, the audience would be able to feel that Alyssa is

02:33refreshment and support for Lily as she goes through darkness and, and light. I really love

02:38Atlas's restaurant and all the details. It was awesome. I was wondering if you guys could tell me

02:44your favorite detail from that's, that's in the restaurant or something that was really meaningful.

02:48A tree. Yeah. The whole tree. The tree, the entire tree with the lights on it was like, whoa. Um, yeah,

02:55it's honestly exactly how I imagined it. Like exactly how I imagined it, which is crazy. I think it's

03:01better, honestly than, and I wrote the book, but I think there was, there were a couple of things

03:07in the restaurant that were like, um, callbacks to Atlas and Lily's young relationship, like the

03:12finding Dory picture on the wall in the bathroom scene. Um, I wasn't expecting those little things. And

03:18so there were a lot of things that didn't make it into the film from the book. And so just seeing

03:23those tiny little touches that were like little shout outs to those things that didn't make it really

03:27meant a lot to me. So, um, getting to walk around the restaurant and just find all those hidden

03:32little treasures was fun. What was your favorite change that they made from the book to the movie?

03:38I actually was relieved when they changed the name of the restaurant. Like I felt like it didn't

03:43translate as well onto film. Like in the book, there was a lot more that went into what the word bibs

03:48meant to, to both of them, but we couldn't bring all of that onto film. And so just, um, relating it

03:55to their conversation when they were digging in the flower beds when they were younger,

03:58I thought was a beautiful way to rename that restaurant. Like anything in a movie,

04:03sometimes you just want to, you want to hit the nail a couple of times on the head. And it felt

04:06like naming his restaurant sort of what he is in the movie. He grounds her. He is sort of the root

04:13and heart of the movie. Um, it just made sense. I still remember the day I saw you in the window.

04:20Yeah. We were just kids then.

04:23It was sort of a traditional casting process where we solicited for, for tapes from actors

04:30all over the country. And then actually we also did this really interesting thing, which we did a

04:34couple of times during the movie where we allowed non-actors to send in self-tapes because the fan base

04:40for this movie was so huge that we wanted to give people opportunities to get involved, even if they

04:46might be an unknown. And really our casting director, Christy Carlson, just started wading through these

04:52hundreds, thousands of tapes and Isabella and Alex sort of emerged just from raw talent and then, you know,

04:59brought them in to do sort of chemistry reads and callbacks. And, and aside from the fact that Isabella

05:04looks almost disturbingly like Blake in real life, like to the point that they have the same mole,

05:11um, they were really just the best for, for the roles. I have so much respect for the book and for

05:19the fans who made this even possible that I just wanted to find a way to just sprinkle in as many

05:25little things as we possibly can. The part of the book we couldn't put in the movie. So I just wanted

05:31to like pepper it in wherever I could. I don't think everyone will notice, but I do believe that the diehard

05:36book fans will notice and hopefully appreciate it. If one day you had a daughter, she came to you and said the

05:41person she loved was hurting her. What would you say to her? The very, very beginning, long before we ever

05:47started filming, um, I brought on a intimacy coordinator, um, and again, step one. And then the second part of that

05:56was also a stunt coordinator. Um, also as a male, I wanted to make sure that all those scenes had,

06:03um, and were shot and designed with a female gaze. So I did whatever I could to take myself out of it.

06:11So really relied heavily on our female intimacy coordinator, um, on our, uh, incredible, uh, stunt

06:18coordinator, um, who was also a woman for those scenes. And, um, and honestly, Blake had a lot, uh,

06:25had, uh, a big involvement in how those scenes were orchestrated and designed because at the end

06:30of the day, like, I just wanted to make sure that they did justice, um, and honored the experience of

06:35so many people and women that have actually experienced this. So we didn't want to shy away

06:41from it. And yet we also had to be really mindful to make it as real as possible. I just wanted to

06:46capture the essence of the book and the complexity of these relationships, the deep love that was

06:50there, the confusion and the situation that Lily is in, and also her choosing something different

06:55for herself than was chosen for her. We break the pattern or the pattern breaks us.

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