Amidst an epic legal battle, an interview reveals the extent to which Blake Lively had a hand in Justin Baldoni’s It Ends With Us.

Blake Lively and her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni have been at each others’ throats for the past few months. It began with Lively receiving a lot of flack for taking over the press tour of the film and escalated when she filed a complaint against Baldoni for s*xual misconduct, leading him to file a lawsuit against her and Ryan Reynolds.

Baldoni’s lawsuit has made several claims that Reynolds and Lively are bullying him and taking creative control of the film. He alleged that several rewrites and changes were made by Lively and in the end, the studio decided to go with those changes. In an interview during the press tour, Lively also admitted to fighting to keep Lana Del Rey’s Cherry in the film.

Blake Lively admitted to facing obstacles for including a Lana Del Rey song in It Ends With Us

A still from It Ends With Us | Credits: Sony Pictures

Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively for $400 million has made several claims regarding the couple’s antics in Hollywood. The actor-director alleged that the couple made several changes to It Ends With Us, including script rewriters and creating Lively’s own cut of the film, which she reportedly forced the studio to release.

While there has been no comment from Lively’s team regarding these allegations, Baldoni’s statements may not be too far from the truth. An interview during the press tour of the film revealed that Blake Lively was the one who added Lana Del Rey’s song Cherry in a pivotal scene in the film. She also reportedly added her friend Taylor Swift’s song in the film.

Blake Lively | Credits: YouTube/Hits Radio

In the interview, Lively claimed that she faced obstacles from the makers, who she refers to as ‘they’, but in the end, she prevailed. She said (via Hits Radio),

They begged me to take that movie out that song out of the movie…I’m not supposed to be talking about this but because they felt like it was…too charged and heavy. And things are still good with Ryle at that point so you don’t want to feel that charge…I was like the moment Atlas enters things are charged and heavy…

The inclusion of the song and other pop numbers was a huge part of the criticism received by the film, with many accusing it of romanticizing serious issues like domestic violence.

Blake Lively admitted to wanting creative control over projects in an old interview

Blake Lively in It Ends With Us | Credits: Sony Pictures

Blake Lively has faced several accusations from Justin Baldoni regarding taking creative control of It Ends With Us. While Baldoni’s Wayfarer Studios holds the rights to Colleen Hoover’s novels, Lively is listed as a producer and reportedly made several rewrites and changes to the film along with her husband Ryan Reynolds.

Lively has long claimed that she does not want to be just an actor in a project and wants to involve herself in other aspects of the project. She said in an old Forbes interview,

But I also knew, like, that wasn’t fulfilling for me, that I wanted to be a part of the storytelling, that I wanted to be part of the narrative, whether that be in the writing, in the costume design, in creating the character…Sometimes, I had directors or producers or writers who would welcome that and invite that once they saw that I was able to offer that, and sometimes I would have people who really resented that because they were like, we just hired you to be an actor.

The actress also admitted to not revealing this aspect of herself during initial meetings with the producers and filmmakers and then later asserting more creative control on the projects.