“I saw a window display of her books—Colleen Hoover, Colleen Hoover, Colleen Hoover,” recalls Blake Lively, who knew that she was working with something special with It Ends With Us, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s #1 New York Times bestseller. “Her name was everywhere. She speaks to an audience—her voice resonates with people. The stories she tells and how she tells them reaches out and grabs so many people.”

Lively plays the main role of Lily Bloom, a young woman who’s determined to break free from her past, but as she falls in love, finds herself falling into the same patterns she grew up with. Lively is also a producer for It Ends With Us, captivated by its story. “I just fell in love with Lily,” Lively says. “I wanted to tell her story because her emotional roadmap was so clear to me, yet there are so many ways she could be portrayed. I knew if I took her on, I would make sure she wasn’t a delicate flower, but a woman with both feet firmly on the ground. Someone in her skin. I thought it was important to see someone you think is settled in themselves get lost. It makes you realize you never really know what people are going through.”

Author Colleen Hoover thinks Lively embodies the best of Lily Bloom, confident in the actress’s portrayal of one of the most important characters she’s ever created, as It Ends With Us is a story intertwined with Hoover’s own experience with her mother and father. “Blake has many of the same qualities I admire in both Lily and my mother,” Hoover says. “To have her playing Lily demonstrates that each situation is unique. There’s no mold to fit.”

Watch Colleen Hoover talk about Blake Lively’s casting here: https://youtu.be/UYTw-_31AGg

Lively shares her interpretation of Lily Bloom, and the strength that resonates within her character. “Lily is not a wilting lily,” says Lively. “She has both feet on the ground and her head screwed on tight—she has real spice and agency. But you can be a woman with confidence and agency and know better, and still not see all of the red flags that you should. When she meets Ryle, she sweeps him off his feet as much as he sweeps her off hers. It was important to create that level playing field, so that when the relationship goes off-kilter, it’s more confusing for her, because she believes in the equality of their partnership and their strength, as individuals and together.”

There was something rewarding in portraying a character that’s going through a healing journey, Lively shares as she explains why she took on the role. “Lily’s at a turning point in her life,” Lively says. “She’s just moved to Boston from her hometown in New England. She’s finally actualizing her dream of opening a flower shop. A major life event happens for her at the start of the movie, which brings up her past in significant ways. While coping with that, she meets someone she falls for almost instantly. She meets two ‘someones’ actually: a man and a new best female friend. Her shop is as wonderful as she imagined it to be, and her whole life is falling into place. Despite having a painful past, her future looks bright. And then, event after event, her life is upended in both beautiful and tragic ways. Her past enters her present in more ways than one, and she has to confront the entirety of her life’s most wonderful and awful experiences, all within the course of this film. It was mammoth to take on but deeply rewarding to tell a story so rich in the full spectrum of emotion.”

Watch the emotional journey of Lily Bloom as It Ends With Us arrives in Philippine cinemas on August 7.

About It Ends with Us

IT ENDS WITH US, the first Colleen Hoover novel adapted for the big screen, tells the compelling story of Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), a woman who overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life in Boston and chase a lifelong dream of opening her own business. A chance meeting with charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni) sparks an intense connection, but as the two fall deeply in love, Lily begins to see sides of Ryle that remind her of her parents’ relationship. When Lily’s first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with Ryle is upended, and Lily realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future.

Directed by Justin Baldoni and produced by Alex Saks, Jamey Heath, Blake Lively and Christy Hall. The film stars Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Amy Morton and Brandon Sklenar, from a screenplay by Christy Hall, based on the book by Colleen Hoover.

In cinemas August 7, It Ends with Us is distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Connect with the hashtag #ItEndsWithUsMovie @columbiapicph

Photo & Video Credit: “Columbia Pictures”