Justin Baldoni Admits He Had a ‘Near Breakdown’ on It Ends with Us Set: ‘I Was Actually Just Shaking’

• Blake Lively’s It Ends with Us costar and director Justin Baldoni talked about portraying the abusive character Ryle Kincaid on the How to Fail podcast with host Elizabeth Day.
• The actor and filmmaker recalled that he “had a near breakdown” after filming one scene in which his character behaves aggressively toward Lively’s character Lily Bloom.
• “Directing is a very lonely job, I’ll just be very candid,” Baldoni, who has previously said he believes Lively should direct It Ends with Us’ sequel It Starts with Us, shared during the podcast.
  

Justin Baldoni is opening up about stress he experienced while pulling double duty on It Ends with Us, in which he starred in and directed.

Baldoni, 40, appeared on the Dec. 4 episode of the How to Fail podcast with host Elizabeth Day, where he opened up about a recent ADHD diagnosis he received and spoke to difficult moments he experienced while leading It Ends with Us‘ production.

“Directing is a very lonely job, I’ll just be very candid,” Baldoni said when asked how he decompressed from playing Ryle, who acts abusive toward Blake Lively’s character Lily throughout their relationship. “Because you are kind of at the top of this totem pole. In your moments of quiet, everybody has a thousand questions for you and also nobody wants to disturb you and you don’t really have many people to talk to and you can’t necessarily share your anxiety or your nervousness about something because you’re also the leader.”

Baldoni admitted that inhabiting the character’s mindset while also directing the drama proved “a very strange place to be” and said there were instances during filming where he would “remove myself and go and shake it out.”

“I’ve done a lot of somatic therapy so there were times when I was actually just shaking,” he added. “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. After that scene, I had a near breakdown.”

It Ends with Us follows a romantic relationship between Lily and Ryle that slowly turns physically and emotionally abusive, all the while Lily reconnects with Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), her high school sweetheart. In the movie, it’s revealed that Ryle accidentally shot and killed his older brother when they were children.

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“That was very hard and honestly, that took a few months,” Baldoni said of ridding the character’s toxic mindset from his brain. “I had dreams as him for a while, and it lived in my body, but I think for the most part, he’s out.”

It Ends with Us was a major success when it released in August, though rumors of behind-the-scenes discord persisted and Baldoni even suggested he should not direct a potential adaptation of the book’s sequel, instead floating Lively’s name for the gig. “There are all these things that happen every day on set, there’s always friction that happens when you make a movie like this,” Baldoni told ELLE. “Then at the end of the day, it’s that friction, I believe, that creates the beautiful art. Everything in life needs friction to grow.”

It Ends with Us will be available to stream on Netflix beginning Dec. 9.