Justin Baldoni didn't want to play Ryle in “It Ends With Us ”until Colleen Hoover convinced him (exclusive)

The "Jane the Virgin" alum only planned to direct the movie adaptation until author Colleen Hoover sent him an email that changed everything.

Justin Baldoni never planned to star in It Ends With Us.

After playing one point of a love triangle on the long-running telenovela-inspired series Jane the Virgin for five seasons, Baldoni's focus shifted to directing and producing via his company Wayfarer Studios. But now, five years later, he's returning to his roots by bringing to life yet another love triangle in the adaptation of Colleen Hoover's romantic drama It Ends With Us. It's a part he might never have played if Hoover hadn't helped convince him to play Ryle in addition to directing the movie.

Related: Blake Lively and Colleen Hoover promise It Ends With Us movie is satisfying for fans of the book

It Ends With Us, the first of Hoover's books to be adapted for the big screen, stars Blake Lively as Lily, a woman who overcomes a traumatic childhood with an abusive father to begin a new life in Boston. Things seem to be on track as she follows her dreams to open her own flower shop, but when she falls in love with charming neurosurgeon Ryle, she begins to realize his abusive behavior only continues the harmful cycle she's been trying to escape her whole life. Their toxic love is further complicated when Lily's childhood love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), reappears in her life, upending everything she thought she knew and wanted.

Baldoni was first introduced to Hoover's 2016 book years ago while he was writing Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity. "My book agent at the time happened to be Colleen's former publisher," he tells Entertainment Weekly. "I was just starting Wayfarer Studios and looking for movies that could reach into somebody's soul and touch them, movies that could inspire, movies that could ignite the spark in somebody to change something in their lives or make a different choice. Human movies. One day, out of the blue, she sent me It Ends With Us, and she said, 'Just give it a shot, and you'll see why I think this is the right thing for you to option.'"

While Hoover is now a bestselling "BookTok" sensation, Baldoni read It Ends With Us before she became a viral phenomenon. "She had a nice following on Goodreads, but she hadn't really become the Colleen Hoover we know today," he remembers. "But she was on that trajectory, and it was very clear."

After Baldoni found himself "sobbing" while reading her book, he struck up a penpal-like relationship with Hoover. "We started emailing back and forth, and it was right when my movie Five Feet Apart, which was my first film, was about to come out," he says. "She went to see it in theaters opening weekend and wrote me, and she said she felt that I could do justice to her story that was so personal to her. That began this beautiful relationship, and it's been five years in the making."

Related: Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni fall in toxic love in It Ends With Us first trailer

It Ends With Us was inspired by Hoover's parents' marriage, particularly her biological father's behavior and treatment of her mother, so Baldoni felt "immense" pressure to do right by her in adapting this story as the director.

"I promised her that I would protect the book, and I'd protect the intention and the why behind the book," he says. "But it's funny, I hadn't really thought about playing Ryle. And then, after my assistant at the time read the book, she brought up, 'You know you've got to play Ryle,' and I was like, 'I don't know.' And then, before we had officially optioned it, Colleen had emailed me. It was just right as we were getting close to paperwork, and it was a very short email. She said, 'Have you ever thought about acting in the movie? Maybe Ryle, perhaps? I think you could do it.' And that was all the email said."

That short email changed everything for Baldoni. "It really got me thinking because she knew the character better than anybody," he explains. "At the time, I was on Jane the Virgin, so acting was really all I was doing. I think it was a combination of the people around me and that email from her where I was like, 'Maybe I should really consider this and try to bring something to Ryle that maybe the readers of the book hadn't pictured in their mind.'"

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As Baldoni began to reframe his vision for the movie as now director and star, everything changed again — for the entire world this time, along with this project. "Of course, as we know, the pandemic hit," he says. "And that's when the book became this global sensation. It hit No. 1, and it was there for a year or something, and that's when Colleen became one of the biggest authors in the world, and people fell in love with this book, and it helped so many people through such a tough time."

Learning how the book resonated with domestic abuse survivors at a time when everyone was stuck at home, potentially in unhealthy environments, motivated Baldoni even more. "The pandemic was a very tough time for so many people, but especially women in certain situations that this book covers, so as this book became this sensation, it just became that much more clear that we had to protect the intention of what the book was," he says. "[Hoover's] vote of confidence, I will never forget, and I will forever be grateful for, and, hopefully, I made her proud."

It Ends With Us opens in theaters Aug. 9.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.