Justin Baldoni experienced a near breakdown on the sets of It Ends With Us.
Baldoni, 40, made the shocking admission during an appearance on How to Fail podcast with host Elizabeth Day, where he spoke of a recent ADHD diagnosis he received.
“Directing is a very lonely job, I’ll just be very candid,” Baldoni began as he answered how he decompressed from playing Ryle, an abusive partner throughout his relationship with Blake Lively’s character Lily.
“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 shared that he turned to “a lot of somatic therapy” at times when he was “actually just shaking” during It Ends with Us‘ production.
Baldoni also revealed the one scene that drove him towards a “near breakdown.”
“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.”
The role wasn’t free of extra care to break free from the psychological aftermaths of playing the aggressive character.
“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.”
