Blake Lively and Isabela Ferrer aren’t just connected on screen It all ends with useach plays a variation of protagonist Lily Bloom, but they also develop close real-life connections.
While their uncanny resemblance may surprise some – there’s even a mole under their right eye – they actually didn’t know each other before working together on the film, based on Colleen Hoover’s beloved film of the same name novel. However, Lively told hollywood reporter When she saw Ferrell’s audition tape, she immediately knew they had found someone special.
“We were like, ‘This is crazy,'” Lively recalled. “There were other great actresses who gave great performances, but no one but her. Because even though she acted differently than me, talked differently than me, acted differently than me, looked different from me, mole It’s also different from me, but her performance is so strong and her heart is so strong.
As for Ferrell, she was grateful to be trusted with playing the younger version of the character, who appears in flashbacks throughout the film. This is also noteworthy given that this is her first feature film.
“I knew how important this movie was and how important Colleen was,” Ferrell said of landing the role. “Also, what a compliment, ‘Can you play a young Blake Lively?’ That’s the biggest compliment I’ve ever gotten in my life.”
Industry icon Lively quickly took Ferrell under her wing, helping her find confidence in her abilities as an actor and take control of her interpretation of Lily.
“You came up to me and said, ‘I want you to know that this character is as much yours as it is mine,'” Ferrell recalled of a conversation they had on set. “As a young actor coming into this industry, it’s the greatest honor and the greatest compliment to feel like someone like you, who has such a high status and is so important in this project, is going to say, ‘What do you think?’
Their vulnerability with each other eventually blossomed into an off-camera friendship that led Lively to jokingly consider becoming Ferrell’s “stage mom.” “Movies are my side job,” gossip Girl Alumni tease in joint interview THR. “Isabella is my priority.”
Lively also recalled how Ferrell supported her on set.
“She knew I was feeling things that no one else in the room knew, like a sweet hand on my shoulder or my leg or my back,” Lively said of Ferrell.
It all ends with us Directed by Justin Baldoni (who also plays Ryall). In the film, Lily must learn to rely on her own strength to overcome childhood trauma and her subsequent relationship with Lyle, which reminds her of her parents’ abusive relationship. While the film tells a love story, it also centers on the power of women to end the cycle of domestic violence in their lives—a message that has resonated with many since the book’s release in 2016 (reportedly sold millions of copies worldwide).
Lively, who also serves as a producer on the project, explained that it was also important to them to tell the story with “love, sensitivity and empathy” from all angles, dismissing the film’s portrayal of domestic abuse as a romance transformation statement.
“We say life is messy, love is messy, people are messy. This is not Google Maps. You haven’t arrived at your destination yet. You think you’ve arrived,” Lively said. “[Lily] She knows where she came from and where she is going, but she will still lose her way, but she will still find more about herself. I think that grace and empathy is everything.
She added, “You’re with Lily on this journey. What’s important is that you’re not looking at her, what’s important is that you are her… and you feel that she is her.
That’s why playing present-day Lily is particularly special for Lively, as it gives her the chance to play a role she says is usually “rare.”
“I get the chance to play characters that are light-hearted, light-hearted, humorous. I get the chance to play characters that have tremendous darkness, heaviness, trauma and drama,” she explained. “But you don’t usually get both at the same time, and this really encompasses the entire spectrum of human emotion and every color: its chaos, its beauty, its pain, in a story that feels very honest and real.”
