Justin Baldoni has tried to put chatter of a feud with his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively to bed after the rumour mill went into overdrive about potential tension between the pair.
The rumours began earlier this month following the New York City premiere of their film when fans noticed Lively and Baldoni didn’t pose together on the red carpet. While Lively was photographed with her husband Ryan Reynolds, his friend Hugh Jackman, and her co-stars Jenny Slate and Brandon Sklenar, Baldoni was seen appearing on the red carpet solo or with his wife, Emily Baldoni.
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Baldoni – who directed and starred in the film – and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, acquired the rights to Colleen Hoover’s book in 2019. Lively was cast as the lead flower shop owner, Lily Blossom Bloom, in January 2023. In the film, Lively’s character falls for a neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni).
Since then, fans of the book and Lively have noticed that Lively and Hoover don’t follow Baldoni on Instagram. In fact, none of the cast members in the film do. Of course, an Instagram follow isn’t exactly concrete evidence when it comes to signs of a feud, but it does raise eyebrows.
But during the recent promo for the film, during which the pair have been interviewed separately, Baldoni compared Lively to ELLE UK as a ‘Ferrari’.
‘You know, you’re acting with somebody who’s a Ferrari of an actor,’ he told us. ‘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.’
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Baldoni also suggested Lively should direct a sequel to the film. ‘I think Blake Lively’s ready to direct, that’s what I think,’ he said.
‘This isn’t my night — this is a night for all the women who we made this movie for. This is a night for Blake, this is a night for Colleen. I’m just so grateful that we’re here, five years in the making.’
He later told Today of the mother-of-four: ‘She’s dynamic, creative. She had her hands in every part of this production and everything she touched, she made better.’
In another interview with Today, he said of working with ‘complex personalities’ on set: ‘Every movie is a miracle. And then, of course, you’re navigating complex personalities and trying to get everybody on the same page with the same vision. And mistakes are always made, and then you figure out how to move past them.’
The actor noted he sometimes felt though people on set wondered ‘if I know what I’m doing or if I have a point of view because I’m so willing to have my vision changed’. ‘You don’t have to listen to everybody and that didn’t happen all the time,’ he said, adding ‘but there were just moments where I would get out of the way too much.’ From the sounds of it, Baldoni is a big fan of Lively, wouldn’t you agree?
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Read the original article in ELLE USA.
