With Just one more time – It ends with us starts today 15 August 2024 the film adaptation of the worldwide bestseller * by US author Colleen Hoover in German cinemas. In it, the florist Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) meets the charming surgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni). But what begins as a love story takes an unexpected turn.
For Moviepilot, I spoke in advance with director and lead actor Justin Baldoni (Three Steps to You), who tackled the film adaptation as a passion project even before the book became a global sensation. The Jane the Virgin star spoke about changes, tricky decisions and event films.
Just one more time: Director and lead actor Justin Baldoni in an interview about It ends with us
Sony
Justin Baldoni as Ryle in It ends with us
When I am allowed into the digital interview room, Justin Baldoni is wiping his sweat and powdering his face at the other end of the video chat in New York. The organizers promptly send me “outside” virtually once again. Of course, this cannot go uncommented on the second attempt at our It ends with us interview.
Moviepilot: Look at you, a new man!
Justin Baldoni: Esther, sorry, I didn’t mean to throw you out of the room. I actually wanted to show you the process of removing the shine from my face. I’m Italian, so I sweat olive oil. They have to pat me down every now and then. [lacht]
No problem at all. Perhaps you could give us some background information to start with. How did you come up with the idea of making a film based on the book It ends with us in 2019?
My book agent sent me It ends with us to read. At first I didn’t know what to expect and had a few reservations. But from the very first scene, the meeting on the roof, I was immediately hooked. But I didn’t know where the story was going. I went through every facial expression available: shock, fear, confusion and tears. At the end I cried out loud and asked my wife if I was OK. Then I knew: If it had touched me so deeply, it must have triggered something similar in many other people.
Plus, there aren’t enough event films for women. I thought if you did it right, it could be a big movie event. A few years later, the book became a global sensation – with TikTok and the pandemic. And now here we are, and I’m so glad to be able to tell this story.
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It ends with us: Justin Baldoni with author Colleen Hoover
Author Colleen Hoover asked you personally if you would play the main character Ryle?
Yes, back then I was with Jane the Virgin [Serien-Hauptdarsteller] and was looking for films to direct. When we secured the film rights to It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover emailed me. She usually writes these long, wonderfully poetic letters and I always joke that everyone should have a romance writer as an email pen pal. They’re so good with words.
But I noticed that this time she had only written a very short email. It said something like this: ‘Have you ever thought about acting in the film yourself? Ryle, perhaps? I can see you in the role.’ I think there was a part of me that always wanted to be in the film as an actor. But I would never put myself in a position where my involvement would have hurt the project. I wanted Ryle to be whoever the fans wanted.
But when Colleen [Hoover] saying it gave me the confidence. If she saw me in the role, I could do it too. I wanted to see if I could bring some humanity to this complicated character. It wasn’t an instant decision, but over the next few years I decided to give it my all.
Were there any fears that people might see you in a different light afterwards?
I wasn’t worried about public perception. My fear was more – because I knew the complexity of the character and the unforgivable things he does in the film – whether I could portray that truthfully. I also knew how important the character was to so many fans. And how real this situation is for so many women.
Ryle has to be charming, charismatic, funny and sensitive. Because we have to believe that she falls in love with him. So I felt the pressure to make him a fully developed, 3-dimensional character with thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams and insecurities. Which doesn’t forgive or excuse anything, but allows us to understand how difficult it is for Lily to make her decision.
Sony
Just one more time – It ends with us
You remain very faithful to the book. One fascinating change, however, is that you make Lily the unreliable narrator. Was that the plan from the beginning?
As we were developing the adaptation, we brought on board the fantastic screenwriter Christy Hall. I knew intuitively that she was the right person for the job. We had long conversations about how we wanted to do the surprisingly complex adaptation. It’s not as black and white as you would think. Because in the book, you have all this time to fall in love with Lily and Ryle. We learn their backstory and we commit to their relationship. And then first something happens.
In the book you know immediately when it happened. – I won’t tell the uninitiated what exactly happened. – In the novel, you are in Lily’s head and hear her internal monologue while everything is happening to her. But we talked a lot beforehand about the fact that if we did the same thing in the film, the cinema audience would immediately make value judgments: Should Lily be with Ryle? Should she be with Atlas? Should she just leave him? Viewers would bring their own baggage to the cinema with them.
We didn’t want to trick the audience, but to make Lily an unreliable narrator. So that at the end of the film all memories can come back and we understand that she was the one who told herself all this. While we are in her perspective. So we can experience her realization that things were not as they thought.
So you wanted to tell your film from the perspective of a gaslighted person who believes what is shown?
Exactly. This was based on personal experiences and conversations I had with survivors and with our partner No More [einer Organisation zur Beendigung von häuslicher und sexueller Gewalt, Anm. d. Red.]
To bring honesty to this situation. And to do justice to the experience that so many people around the world have.
Would you also like to adapt Colleen Hoover’s novel sequel It starts with us – Just once more and for ever *?
I don’t know yet. That’s a discussion for later. We have to wait and see how the film is received. But I’m very open to anything.
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