Blake Lively Reveals the ‘Entire Sonic Universe’ of Music That Inspired ‘It Ends With Us’

Humans are complex creatures, capable of experiencing joy, sorrow, and everything in between. It Ends With Us, the first Colleen Hoover novel brought to life on the big screen, captures that kaleidoscope of emotions, weaving a tale of love, resilience, and the choices we make.

The movie, which hit U.S. theaters on Friday, stars Blake Lively as protagonist Lily Bloom, a woman who overcomes a traumatic childhood to begin a new life in Boston and pursue her dream of opening a business. She falls for charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni) but soon begins to see sides of him that remind her of her parents’ relationship. When Lily’s childhood love Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar) reappears in her life, her relationship with Ryle is upended, leaving her with an impossible choice.

Adapted for the screen by Christy Hall, the film has sparked a fresh wave of interest in the 2016 novel. The day after the official trailer dropped, the audiobook reached its biggest listening numbers ever on Spotify, while searches for “It Ends With Us” shot up nearly 600% throughout the week.

Now, fans can experience the romantic drama in a whole new light—and music plays a crucial part in the adaptation. It’s also a huge source of inspiration and creativity for Blake, who helped pick the songs that make up the movie’s soundtrack. But to truly capture the full extent of artists, songs, and genres that define It Ends With Us, the actress also created a special (6.5-hour-long!) Spotify playlist.

For the Record sat down with Blake and her costar Isabela Ferrer, who plays young Lily, to discuss their creative processes, the vastness of the human experience, and the power of music.

Blake, you curated a Spotify playlist for It Ends With Us. What was your approach?

I was asked to include a few songs—I included 100. One hundred songs. I was lucky to get to select the music in this movie with our music supervisor, Season Kent, and one of our editors, Shane Reid. And the music in this movie is everything. Lily’s story, what she’s feeling, comes through in the music—sometimes she can’t express it in words, but you can feel it in songs. So, these are songs that are not only in the film, but also songs that I listened to while making the film, songs that were in early cuts of the movie, and songs that inspired the score. This really is the entire sonic universe that we all lived and breathed while making this film.

If you could pick one anthem for Lily, what would it be?

Blake: Lily is so multifaceted. She’s somebody who is like a contradiction of herself at all times, yet it makes perfect sense for her, and it’s totally harmonious. That’s why I have a 100-song playlist. My anthem is 100 songs long. Enjoy!

Isabela: I would pick “God Turn Me Into a Flower” by Weyes Blood. That song is the most atmospheric, most beautiful. It feels like the movie The Tree of Life but in a song. Every time I would listen to it, it just felt like what I feel Lily’s inner life is like—just the fullest, most expansive thing. It’s one of my favorite songs.

Blake: Will you send me a playlist? Because I love all the music you’re talking about, and I want to hear it. 

Isabela: Yeah, I’ll send it to you! I love Weyes Blood so much. Her voice—there’s something so angelic and emotional [about her music] and I feel like it just keeps me in touch with myself.

On that note, how does music play into your creative process? Does it help you get into character?

Isabela: I feel like you can build a world around music. At least for me, what I listen to really affects my day. If I’m walking somewhere through the streets of New York and I’m listening to something upbeat, that gets me in the mood. Or if I’m feeling really sad and just need to cry, I’ll put on Jeff Buckley. And I feel like that’s such a cool part of playing these types of roles, where you actually get to ask yourself: What would they listen to? You get to world-build. You get to really invest more in that character with music.

Blake: For me, the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve gotten involved in the filmmaking and storytelling outside of my character. Music is storytelling. I never look at it as character specific, I look at it through moments in the story. Are we trying to underscore something, are we trying to juxtapose the moment with a song, are we trying to lean into it, are we trying to bring back nostalgia? That’s why Dashboard Confessional is in [It Ends With Us]—that’s something that sounds like high school, where you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I forgot how much I felt and how much I loved!” Music can really transport you. So, I look at it less through the character of Lily and more through what we want the audience to be feeling at that moment.

And my husband and I both help each other so much with music. We’re like uncredited music supervisors on each other’s movies. I mean, you see that all over Deadpool & Wolverine, all that millennial girl music. He loves Avril Lavigne—fellow Canadian—but he was not feeling the feels, in his car in middle school, screaming “it’s a damn cold night” [from “I’m with You”]. So, both of our loves are all over each other’s work, and I think that’s really special.

Can you describe It Ends With Us in three words?

Blake: No! I choose one word: No. Because I cannot describe it in three words. I think that this is a movie about feeling. It’s a movie about feeling with other people, whether it’s a loved one or a friend or strangers. You go to the theater, where you’re surrounded by a bunch of strangers, to laugh with a group of people, to cry with a group of people, to be afraid, to be excited, to feel nostalgic, to feel passionate about the future, or to feel someone’s dreams come to fruition. Feeling the whole messiness of the human experience with others and that connectivity that you feel in a theater, there’s nothing like it. We watched this movie with 3,000 fans in Dallas and it was just so beautiful and so cool to experience that. So, I hope people come and feel. I hope they come and feel all of it. It’s a whole roller coaster.

Hit play on Blake’s playlist to hop on the roller coaster of emotions.