Blake Lively is calming the nerves of devoted fans of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel It Ends With Us, promising that they will adore the film adaptation.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight on Friday, Lively, 36, who stars as Lily Bloom in the movie, directed and co-starring Justin Baldoni, expressed her confidence in the project.
“Some people will always like a book better than a movie and some people like a movie better than the book, but I think that we just did our best to honour the book and honour the fans, and, I think, really make something that works even by itself,” Lively explained.
“If you don’t know the book, the movie works,” the Green Lantern actress continued.
“I don’t think there’s any way that if you read the book and you saw the movie that you wouldn’t be thrilled. We really worked hard on that,” she added.
“I also believe if you saw the movie and then read the book, you wouldn’t go, ‘Hold on, this isn’t like [the other].’ You can do either. I think they’re both really beautiful.”
The forthcoming film, which is scheduled for release on August 9, chronicles Lily Bloom’s journey towards a fresh start following a turbulent upbringing.
She meets the charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (played by Justin Baldoni) as she pursues her goals, but as their relationship grows, unsettling parallels to her parents’ relationship are revealed.
Lily’s situation becomes even more complicated when her first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), reappears out of nowhere.
The character Lily, played by Blake Lively, stresses the need to interact with fans, many of whom have been following writer Colleen Hoover’s work from the start.
“This story resonated with so many people, so there’s a great responsibility that comes with that,” Lively said of It Ends With Us.
“You want to honour this book and this character that people love so much, but you also want to bring a life and a humanity to it that is true to who you are. It’s a lot of different things that you want to accomplish in this story.”