Featured Image Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Topics: Blake Lively, Domestic Abuse, Netflix, Film and TV
Ellie Kemp
Topics: Blake Lively, Domestic Abuse, Netflix, Film and TV
One of the most controversial films of the year is about to join Netflix.
As if you could forget, It Ends With Us made headlines for all the wrong reasons ahead of its August 9 release this year.
And now, director and actor Justin Baldoni has revealed one particular scene had him on the brink of a break down.
Starring Gossip Girl's Blake Lively and Jane The Virgin's Justin Baldoni, the drama is based on Colleen Hoover's polarizing 2016 novel of the same name.
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Lively stars as Lily Bloom, an aspiring florist who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle (Baldoni).
Their relationship gradually turns physically and emotionally abusive, while Lily reconnects with high school sweetheart Atlas (Brandon Sklenar).
Rumors of a feud between the pair began to swirl as the movie's press tour got underway, with Lively and Baldoni kept their distance at red carpet events and appearing to not interview together.
And on Friday December 9, Netflix subscribers in the US will finally be able to watch the movie - which has been criticized for romanticizing domestic abuse.
Speaking on Elizabeth Day's How to Fail podcast earlier this week, Baldoni opened up about a particularly difficult moment on the set of It Ends with Us.
He admitted that taking on Ryle's mindset while also calling the shots was 'a very strange place to be.'
Baldoni would have to take a moment to remove himself from set and 'shake it off.'
He told Day: "I've done a lot of somatic therapy so there were times when I was actually just shaking.
"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."
He candidly added: "After that scene, I had a near breakdown."
Of separating the character's mindset from his own, Baldoni said: "That was very hard and honestly, that took a few months. I had dreams as him for a while, and it lived in my body, but I think for the most part, he's out."
Previously, Baldoni addressed rumors of friction on set while praising working with 'powerhouse' Lively.
He spoke of how Lively 'touched so many aspects of this production' with how 'responsive and reactive' she was, resolving 'everything she touched she made better'.
Speaking of life on set, he said: "There are all these things that happen every day on set, there's always friction that happens when you make a movie like this."
However, he argued that, in his belief, it's this 'friction' which 'creates the beautiful art'.
It Ends With Us joins Netflix in the US on Monday December 9.