Justin Baldoni Addresses Leaving Out Famous It Ends With Us Line

It Ends With Us director and star Justin Baldoni knows there are some fan-favorite moments from the book that aren’t in the film adaptation, and he did his best to make up for that.

“Something that I know so many fans love from the book that didn’t make it in the movie was the phrase ‘just keep swimming’ that Lily (Blake Lively) and Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) shared over the course of the book,” Baldoni, 40, who plays Ryle Kincaid, explained in a promotional video shared via the official It Ends With Us Instagram page on Friday, August 23. “If you watch the movie, look in Lily’s bedroom on her wall, there’s a poster. I’m not gonna say what it’s [a poster] of, but you’ll see a little homage to maybe the movie or the saying, if you will.”

Baldoni went on to share more nods to “just keep swimming” that fans of the Colleen Hoover novel should look for in the film, which hit theaters on August 9.

“There’s also a stuffed animal that if you blink, you might miss, but I think you’ll get it,” he said. “And then when Lily reconnects with Atlas for the first time at Root restaurant, right by the bathroom, if you look in between them, there is a frame on the wall with a very similar saying to [just keep swimming].”

“Just keep swimming” is a quote from the film Finding Nemo, and a poster for the Pixar movie and a plushie of the titular clownfish can both be spotted in It Ends With Us. When Lily and Atlas meet up at the restaurant Root (renamed from the book’s Bibs), there is a framed picture of a fish with a quote about swimming forward on the wall between them.

“I love finding a way to infuse little Easter eggs into the film because of course we can’t put everything from the book into the movie,” Baldoni explained.

It Ends With Us chronicles Ryle and Lily’s abusive relationship, as inspired by Hoover’s family history. Baldoni told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month that the film’s heavy subject matter weighed on him during the shoot.

“There were a lot of times where I would have to go privately into a room and just cry or shake it out and try to get him out of me and that energy out of me,” he said. “Because it’s too real. There are too many people that are the real-life Lily Blooms of the world that have to deal with that every single day, and I wanted it to be as real as possible and yet it was very hard to shoot those scenes.”

In addition to the intensity captured on screen, It Ends With Us reportedly had behind-the-scenes drama as well. A source exclusively told Us earlier this month that “there were two camps on the film — team Blake and team Justin.” The insider added that Lively, 36, and Baldoni’s “creative struggle set the tone of the negative experience behind the scenes and grew into them not speaking anymore.”

While the source said that “Justin was made to feel that his vision wasn’t as important” as Lively’s, who served as an executive producer on the film, a second source told Us that “any changes or input by Blake was to create the best film possible and honor the book.”

It Ends With Us is currently in theaters.

If you or someone you know are experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.