Hasan Minhaj is pleading the fifth when it comes to the rumored It Ends With Us drama.
“I can’t speak to other people’s experience, but everybody was very professional and cool to me,” Minhaj, 39, told Esquire in an interview published on Wednesday, September 25. “It was lovely and everybody was lovely, and it is just as disillusioning for me, because I’m like, ‘What happened? Wait, what’s going on?’”
Minhaj starred as Marshall in the Justin Baldoni-directed adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling book of the same name. Baldoni, 40, was also the leading on screen, starring as the Ryle to Blake Lively’s Lily.
“It’s a surreal, wild thing that I couldn’t even imagine,” Minhaj said of the movie’s success. “I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted it. I remember when Justin reached out to me and asked me to be part of the movie; he was so impassioned.”
Before It Ends With Us was released in August, rumors of tension between Lively, 37, and Baldoni started to swirl on TikTok. Fans noticed that Baldoni didn’t join the rest of the cast for any interviews or press opportunities, while Lively promoted the film with some of her costars.
“There were two camps on the film — team Blake and team Justin,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively last month. “This creative struggle set the tone for the negative experience behind the scenes and grew into them not speaking anymore.”
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni Courtesy Sony Pictures Ent.
It was widely reported that Lively, who was also an executive producer on the project, had commissioned her own editor to cut a different version of the film. A separate source told Us that it’s “typical to have many cuts of the film during the post-production process.”
Lively also garnered widespread backlash for not acknowledging the film’s subject matter during many of her press appearances. Her character experiences domestic violence in her marriage to Ryle, but Lively initially focused on the film’s romantic story line in her promotion. She has since shared domestic violence resources on social media.
Speaking about the controversy, Minhaj told Esquire, “It was a strange, bizarre year, and I am a comic deep down, because there are moments where I’m laughing at it.”
Justin Baldoni appears to have nothing but positive things to say about his It Ends with Us costar, Blake Lively, as reports of an on set feud continue circulating online. As the drama officially hits theaters on Friday, August 9, Baldoni, who both directed and starred opposite Lively, has heaped praise on his onscreen partner. […]
While Minhaj played coy about the drama, Lively and Baldoni’s costar Brandon Sklenar (Atlas) released a lengthy statement addressing the rumors last month.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni Courtesy Sony Pictures Ent.
“Colleen [Hoover] and the women of this cast stand for hope, perseverance, and for women choosing a better life for themselves,” he wrote, in part. “Vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in its message seems counterproductive and detracts from what this film is about.”
He added: “What may or may not have happened behind the scenes does not and hopefully should not detract from what our intentions were in making this film. It’s been disheartening to see the amount of negativity being projected online.”
