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 to
03:55their conversation when they were digging in, in the flower beds when they were younger, I thought
03:59was a beautiful way to rename that restaurant. Like anything in a movie, sometimes you just want
04:03to, you want to hit the nail a couple of times on the head and it felt like naming his restaurant
04:09sort of what he is in the movie. He grounds her. He is sort of the root and heart of the movie.
04:15Um, it just made sense. I still remember the day I saw you in the window.
04:19Yeah, 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
04:34a couple of times during the movie where we allowed non-actors to send in self-tapes because the fan
04:39base for this movie was so huge that we wanted to give people opportunities to get involved, even if
04:46they might be an unknown. And really our casting director, Christy Carlson, just started weeding
04:51through these hundreds, thousands of tapes. And Isabella and Alex sort of emerged just from raw
04:58talent and then, you know, brought them in to do sort of chemistry reads and callbacks. And aside
05:03from the fact that Isabella looks almost disturbingly like Blake in real life, like to the point that they
05:09have the same mole, um, they were really just the best for, for the roles.
05:14I have so much respect for the book and for the fans who made this even possible that I just wanted
05:23to find a way to just sprinkle in as many little things as we possibly can. The part of the, the book
05:28we couldn't put in the movie. So I just wanted to like pepper it in wherever I could. I don't think
05:33everyone will notice, but I do believe that the diehard book fans will notice and hopefully appreciate it.
05:37If one day you had a daughter, she came to you and said the person she loved was hurting her.
05:44What would you say to her? The very, very beginning, long before we ever started filming,
05:49um, 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, um, and were shot and designed, um, with a female gaze. So I did whatever I could to take
06:10myself out of it. So really relied heavily on our female intimacy coordinator, um, on our, uh,
06:16incredible, uh, stunt coordinator, um, who was also a woman for those scenes. And, um, and honestly,
06:23Blake had a lot, uh, had, uh, a big involvement in how those scenes were orchestrated and designed.
06:29Because at the end of the day, like, I just wanted to make sure that they did justice,
06:33um, and honored the experience of so many people and women that have actually experienced this.
06:39So we didn't want to shy away from it. And yet we also had to be really mindful to make it as real as
06:44possible. I just wanted to capture the essence of the book in the complexity of these relationships,
06:49the deep love that was there, the confusion and the situation that Lily is in, and also
06:54her choosing something different for herself than was chosen for her. We break the pattern.
07:02Or the pattern breaks us.
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