Blake Lively and Isabela Ferrer not only had an on-screen connection in It Ends With Us, each playing a variation of the lead character Lily Bloom, but they also forged a close bond in real life.
Though their uncanny resemblance may surprise some — down to a mole below their right eyes — they actually didn’t know each other prior to working together on the movie, based on Colleen Hoover‘s beloved book of the same name. However, Lively tells The Hollywood Reporter that once she saw Ferrer’s audition tape, she instantly knew they found someone special.
“We were like, ‘This is crazy,’” Lively recalls. “And there were other great actresses who gave great performances, but there was just no one but her. Because even if she didn’t act in a similar way as me or speak in a similar way or have similar mannerisms or look like me or have the same mole, her performance was so strong, her heart was so strong.”
As for Ferrer, she felt grateful to be trusted with the responsibility of portraying a younger version of the character, who is featured in flashbacks throughout the film. It was also notable given that it was her first feature film.
“I knew how important this movie was and how important Colleen is,” Ferrer says of landing the role. “Also, what a nice compliment to be like, ‘Could you play young Blake Lively?’ That’s the biggest compliment I’ve ever gotten in my whole life.”
Lively, an industry icon, quickly took Ferrer under her wing to help her find the confidence to trust her abilities as an actor and to take ownership of her variation of Lily.
“You came up to me and you were like, ‘I want you to know that this role is just as much yours as it is mine,’” Ferrer recounts of an on-set conversation between them. “It was like the most supportive and uplifting thing to feel as a young actor coming into this, to feel like somebody like you who has such a high status and is so important in this project to also be like, ‘What do you think?’ That’s the biggest privilege and compliment.”
Their vulnerability with each other eventually developed into an off-camera friendship, one that had Lively jokingly thinking about becoming a “stage mom” for Ferrer. “The film is my side hustle,” the Gossip Girl alum quips during the joint interview with THR. “Isabella is my main priority.”
Lively also recalls how Ferrer supported her on set.
“She knows I’m feeling something that nobody else in the room knows, and it’ll just feel like the sweet hand on my shoulder or on my leg or on my back,” Lively says of Ferrer.
It Ends With Us is directed by Justin Baldoni (who also plays Ryle). In the film, Lily must learn to rely on her own strength to overcome a traumatic childhood and later a relationship with Ryle that reminds her of her parents’ abusive relationship. While the film includes a love story, it also centers on a woman’s strength to end the cycle of domestic violence in her life — a message that has resonated with many since the book’s 2016 release (it reportedly sold millions of copies worldwide).
Lively, who also served as a producer on the project, explains that it was also important for them to tell the story with “love and sensitivity and empathy” from all angles, dismissing claims that the film romanticizes domestic abuse.
“We’re saying life is messy, love is messy, people are messy. It’s not Google Maps. You haven’t arrived at your destination. You think you’ve arrived,” Lively says. “[Lily] knows where she came from and where she’s going, but she still gets lost and still finds herself more. And I think that that grace and that empathy is everything.”
She adds, “You are with Lily on this journey. It’s very important that you weren’t watching her, it was important that you were her… you feel it as her.”
And that’s also why playing present-day Lily was particularly special for Lively, as it gave her the chance to portray a character that she says is often “rare” to find.
“I’ve been given the opportunity to play characters that have levity and light and humor. And I’ve been given opportunities to play characters that have immense darkness and weight and trauma and drama,” she explains. “But you don’t normally get both at the same time, and this really has the entire spectrum and every color of human emotion: the messiness of it, the beauty of it, the pain of it, in a story that feels incredibly honest and real.”