Justin Baldoni had a very rough time working on the set of It Ends With Us.
Of course, when we write that sentence — and when you read it — pretty much everybody on earth thinks about the, um, VERY contentious situation involving him and Blake Lively on set. While Baldoni was tapped to direct the film based on the super-popular Colleen Hoover novel, the Gossip Girl alum didn’t exactly make it easy on him. To, uh, put it very mildly.
But Justin isn’t referring to that endless dynamic in new comments made on the How To Fail podcast opposite host Elizabeth Day which dropped on Wednesday. Instead, during the new interview, the Jane The Virgin alum stuck to discussing how difficult it was to play abuser Ryle Kincaid!
Of course, if you saw the movie (and/or read Hoover’s novel), you know that the whole story centers around Blake’s character Lily Bloom and her abusive husband Ryle, played by Baldoni. As Justin explained on the pod, having to play such an aggressive and seething character while also being responsible for directing the film proved incredibly difficult:
“Directing is a very lonely job — I’ll just be very candid — because you are kind of at the top of this totem pole. In your moments of quiet, everybody has a thousand questions for you and also nobody wants to disturb you. And you don’t really have many people to talk to, and you can’t necessarily share your anxiety or your nervousness about something because you’re also the leader.”
That’s already a stressful spot. Then when it came to portraying Kincaid on screen, Justin’s now-infamous on-set isolation got even worse:
“It’s a very strange place to be, let alone directing while trying to play a character who does the things that Ryle does in the movie. There were moments in the filming of this where I would just have to leave. I’d have to remove myself and go shake it out. I mean, I’ve done a lot of somatic therapy so there were times when I was actually just shaking.”
Yikes!!
Specifically regarding Ryle’s scripted behavior, Justin recalled one IEWU scene in particular that caused him to have “a near breakdown” on set:
“There’s a moment in the movie where Ryle finds Lily’s phone, and he finds a phone number, and he’s very jealous and he’s heartbroken and he’s angry. And he doesn’t harm her, but you can see in his eyes how dangerous he is. After that scene, I had a near breakdown.”
The moment was so powerful and difficult that it forced Baldoni to flee the area and take some time to recover:
“And I had to leave and just cry and shake because there was so much pain.”
Whoa.
We’ve heard some sources say he was a little too method and “borderline abusive” with the very real cast. Could this be what those insiders meant? He let the character too far in?
Even though filming wrapped long ago for the film that was released back in early August, Baldoni nevertheless held on to Ryle’s violent character and deep trauma for a long time afterwards. Reflecting on that, Justin told Day on the podcast that it took a full four months after the film was released (so, like, leading all the way up to this week, give or take!) for him to finally let go of Ryle:
“What he does is a result of what he has kept in and so what’s hard about having that in your body is having the trauma live in your body of what he’s experienced or creating that trauma in your body. And creating that insecurity and the pain and the feeling that you shouldn’t actually be alive. I had dreams as him for a while, and it lived in my body, but I think for the most part, he’s out.”
That is SO intense. But also… is it completely honest? No doubt filming the movie was difficult at times considering its traumatic storyline. However, we wonder if the “near breakdown” as Justin describes it may have been greatly exacerbated by his on-set spat with Blake. Just saying!
What do U think, Perezcious readers? Share your takes in the comments (below)…
[Image via Nicky Nelson/MEGA/WENN]
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