What Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni said about using relationship coordinаtоrs
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have both spoken in separate interviews about working with intimacy coordinators while making It Ends With Us.
The costars depict a whirlwind relationship that turns toxic and abusive in the film, which is an adaptation of the 2016 bestseller by author Colleen Hoover.
Chelsea Cary and Lizzy Talbot are credited as intimacy coordinators on the project, and Baldoni, also the director, told Harper’s Bazaar India that the filmmaking team
«knew from the very beginning that there was no way we could do this movie without intimacy coordinators,» as well as stunt coordinators.
«It was so important to have them on set — not just so that we could all feel safe, but because they were also incredible collaborators with wonderful ideas that really elevated the film,» said Baldoni, 40.
«… Having them on set and always in my eye line was invaluable because at any point I could look at one of them for a thumbs up, or we’d work on another approach together,» said Baldoni.
«They were such an important and integral part of our process.»
Also a producer, Lively, 36, told Digital Spy it was «critical» to have an intimacy coordinator’s involvement on set.
«You coordinate stunts, you coordinate dancing. It is choreography. So to be able to say ‘This is what happens here, here and here’ in a stunt, and ‘This is what happens here, here and here’ in a dance,
but ‘Now you guys just go put your bodies together and your mouths and whatever, and action and cut,’ that’s ridiculous. I think that being choreographed is critical for everyone’s safety.»
At the film’s New York City premiere, Baldoni told The Hollywood Reporter that acting out the scenes involving domestic violence was «very hard for me.»
«There were a lot of times where I would have to go privately into a room and just cry or shake it out and try to get him out of me and that energy out of me, because it’s too real,» he said.
«There are too many people that are the real-life Lily Blooms of the world that have to deal with that every single day, and I wanted it to be as real as possible, and yet it was very hard to shoot those scenes.»
