Colleen Hoover Addressed the Blake Lively Casting Controversy for 'It Ends With Us'

When news broke that Blake Lively would be playing the lead for the movie adaptation of the beloved Colleen Hoover novel It Ends With Us, some fans were left wondering why the actress ended up with top billing, since the character of Lily was portrayed as a young twentysomething in the novel. However, during an appearance at Jenna Bush Hager's Book Bonanza in Texas over the weekend, Hoover explained that she was just rectifying a mistake she'd made when she was writing the 2016 book. 

Lively is 35 years old and in the book, Lily is 23. During an interview, Hoover said she didn't realize it took so long to become a neurosurgeon and casting Justin Baldoni, who is 39, fixed that error of creating a fictional 30-year-old brain surgeon named Ryle. So, by adjusting everyone's age, Lively's casting makes perfect sense.

"Back when I wrote It Ends With Us, the new adult [genre] was very popular," Hoover said, according to Today. "You were writing college-age characters. That's what I was contracted to do. I made Lily very young. I didn't know that neurosurgeons went to school for 50 years. There's not a 20-something neurosurgeon. As I started making this movie, I'm like, we need to age them [up], because I messed up. So, that's my fault."

Hoover added she was "extremely happy with the casting" of Lively and Baldoni and noted that she fell in love with Lively back when she was on Gossip Girl.

"I was like, 'Yeah, OK, that'd be great,'" she said. "I think [Baldoni] expected [me] to just scream into the phone. But he doesn't realize ... I have not allowed myself to get truly excited because I'm like, something could happen. It's not done filming. Anything could go wrong."

The film also stars Jenny Slate as Ryle's sister and Hasan Minhaj as her husband, Marshall.