Blake Lively has controversially ended up in the middle of the online discourse when a collection of old voice recordings related to the early history of the It Ends With Us resurfaced and went viral on social media. The films, filmed long before the legal tensions were set to go public, are a peep into a time when the creatives of the film looked in harmony and coordination and truly excited. The recordings are not recent, but they have sparked renewed attention to the involvement of Lively in the project and the working relationship between her and director Justin Baldoni in its early days.
The voice recordings are said to have been made during the casting, scripting and pre-production period of the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover bestselling novel. By that time, Blake Lively had been already attached to the project, as the lead character, Lily Bloom, and the negotiations were still very dynamic, imaginative and open-minded. The tone of the messages is a working relationship based on mutual respect, as Baldoni openly acknowledges that Lively has done more than just acting independently. The audience has reported that the audio sounds warm but the legal aspects that would subsequently unfold are not at all, creating the impression that the videos have been created in a different timeline and place during a happier chapter of the show.
In a message that was shared a number of times, Baldoni shows his appreciation to Lively because she sent him photos of her costume fittings, a moment that appeared to have really touched his heart. He informs that he had the chills after viewing the pictures and that she was beautiful. The remarks though plain straight forward have attracted much attention due to the timing and tone. They are a means of encouraging industry norms to some fans, provided in the early days of creative partnership. To others, the comments have raised a discussion as to how praise, intention and understanding may change as soon as professional relationship becomes sour.
Besides compliments relating to the appearance, the voice notes also address the creative input of Blake Lively, especially her involvement with the script. When discussing the adaptation of the novel to the screen, Baldoni calls her a great writer and admits her ideas and narrative instincts. The fact has appealed to numerous people in the industry who have been watching Lively ever since her career and have observed her increasing participation behind the camera. However, she has also been more and more acknowledged over the years as not simply an actor, but as a partner with firmly held views of character development, tone, and storytelling, particularly in those undertakings that focus on the experiences of women.
The tapes also show inner deliberations regarding casting, particularly the younger Lily Bloom. Baldoni is not afraid to talk about how to reconcile creative integrity and expectations of the audience, citing the popularity of actress Abigail Cowen among those who read the book. Assuming what is heard in the clips, he momentarily ponders the possibility of a well-known face cast perhaps to enjoy readership with him mentioning he wanted to present to the fans what they wanted. Meanwhile, he also shows and states that Cowen did not look like Blake Lively and that making them look the same by using certain stylistic elements, such as wigs, might destroy the emotional flow of the narrative.
The production took a new turn in the end. The movie matured the characters in the original novel, a move that was arrived at after consulting with the author Colleen Hoover, and Isabella Ferreira was chosen to portray young Lily Bloom. Reflectively, this decision has been widely accepted as a viable accommodationist move, owing to the fact that the book tends to need a careful adaptationist shift into the screen. Nevertheless, these deliberations live have been a delight to the fans as they rarely have the chance to listen to this type of raw insight behind closed doors on how major casting calls are debated.
The voice notes have been especially convincing due to the way that they have re-framed Blake Lively in the context of the film. Instead of only presenting herself as an actor that was contracted to speak specific words, she is presented as a member of the team, whose feedback was considered and appreciated. The recognition of her writing sensibility, in an industry where the creative input made by actresses is sometimes undervalued or ignored, has resonated. It strengthens the notion that Lively might have left a huge impact on the project that would ultimately appear on the screen.
Simultaneously, the reaction of the population has been hardly unanimous. The social media responses vary from nostalgia to disbelief with some users perceiving the clips as opportune professional conversations and others doubting the suitability of some of the comments after the fact. The antagonistic reactions show a larger cultural change in the reassessment of past contacts when the circumstances undergo the transition. Words that are believed to be supportive may be put into a new perspective when perceived in the context of conflict, power, or even legal dispute.
In the case of Blake Lively, the newfound publicity is a reminder that the digital age has made stories change too fast. Some minutes of recorded audio have come to be the center of debate over professionalism, limits and creative cooperation in Hollywood. Although the clips themselves do not present any new facts, it provides an emotional nuance to an already complicated situation, allowing the population to reassess previous beliefs about the way the film was made and to whom it was seen by.
