“It Ends With Us” gets into pretty heavy subject material, being a story about domestic violence. But there was one scene in particular that sent the film’s director and co-lead, Justin Baldoni, into a “near breakdown.”
Appearing on Wednesday’s episode of Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail podcast, Baldoni opened up about the struggles of directing on the film, admitting that directing in general “is a very lonely job,” because “you can’t necessarily share your anxiety or your nervousness about something because you’re also the leader.”
“So it’s a very strange place to be, let alone directing while trying to play a character who does the things that Ryle does in the movie,” he said.
“So there were moments in the filming of this where I would just have to leave. I’d have to remove myself and go shake it out.”
Among those moments was a scene in the film where Ryle goes through Lily’s (Blake Lively) phone and becomes jealous. He doesn’t get immediately violent, but it’s a pivotal dark turn.
“You can see in his eyes how dangerous he is. After that scene, I had a near breakdown,” Baldoni said. “And I had to leave and just cry and shake because there was so much pain.”
“It Ends With Us” begins streaming on Netflix on December 9.