'It Ends With Us' Star Justin Baldoni Opens Up On 'Lonely' And 'Strange' Experience Shooting The Movie

Actor and director Justin Baldoni is ready to talk about his experience shooting It Ends with Us.

Several months after controversies surrounding the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s came to light, the 40-year-old spoke candidly about the arduous shoot and how it affected him physically and emotionally – some of which he is still tackling today.

While chatting with Elizabeth Day on her How to Fail podcast, Justin explained how a recent ADHD diagnosis amplified dark feelings while filming It Ends with Us.

"Directing is a very lonely job, I'll just be very candid," Baldoni, who played love interest Ryle Kincaid, says, further explaining, “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.”

The Jane the Virgin alum also shared that the exalted position of leading a film doesn’t give much leeway to express stress or frustration to others on set.

“You don't really have many people to talk to,” he continued, per PopCulture, “and you can't necessarily share your anxiety or your nervousness about something because you're also the leader."

Along with directing, Baldoni also had to channel the mindset of the abusive Ryle in front of the camera.

Noting the duality as “a very strange place to be,” there were times when Justin would have to walk away from filming to “shake it out” to the best of his ability – which didn’t always help.

"I've done a lot of somatic therapy so there were times when I was actually just shaking," he recalled.

"There's a moment in the movie where Ryle finds Lily's (Blake Lively) phone and he finds a phone number. He's very jealous and he's heartbroken, and he's angry. He doesn't harm her but you can see in his eyes how dangerous he is. After that scene, I had a near breakdown."

Baldoni says he required a break to “cry and shake because there was so much pain.”

Shooting on It Ends with Us wrapped sometime in early 2024 following a postponement due to the 2023 WGA Strikes.

According to Justin, it would take four months for him to fully detach from playing Ryle.

“[Ryle] lived in my body,” Baldoni shared. “What’s hard about having [a character like] that in your body is having the trauma live in [you] of what he’s experienced.”

“I [even] had dreams as him for a while,” he further admitted, “but I think, for the most part, he’s out [now].”

Later in the How to Fail podcast, Baldoni touched on a shocking experience during a “toxic relationship” from his college days.

While attending Long Beach State, Justin says he met a “beautiful young woman” while shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch.

Unfortunately, the coupling was disastrous from the start.

“I right into this relationship because I was trying to fill a hole and a void where I just didn't feel like I was enough,” he relayed.

"I had strong values and opinions and beliefs going in,” Baldoni says, “and those were very easily manipulated and reshaped to the point where a few months in I completely lost any sense of self that I had left. And it got very emotionally abusive."

At some point, Baldoni “experienced sexual trauma” that sent him into an emotional tailspin.

“[I] wrestled with that trauma for the rest of my life,” he shared, “because, in my head, a man can't experience sexual trauma at the hands of a woman. It's the way society has kind of made me feel that you know, it's only the other way around, when in reality it can happen."

While he didn’t detail what exactly occurred, Justin confirmed that he lost his virginity during the heinous act.

“[I] was hoping to save myself for marriage, and that's as detailed as I'll get into the story,” he stated.

A therapy session as an adult would finally start the healing process.

“One day my therapist asked me, ‘Justin, you do a lot of work in this space: If a woman told you that story, what would you call it?’ And that’s when I broke.”

If you have not seen It Ends with Us, you’re in luck! The movie will begin streaming on Netflix on December 9. It is also available on DVD and BluRay.