Welcome to Portrait Session, an intimate photo series and interview featuring some of our favorite people of the moment.
Never has a character hit home for Brandon Sklenar quite like Atlas from It Ends With Us. The actor may not have been to war, and he’ll be the first to admit he’s not a great cook, but for all intents and purposes, “[he] pretty much [is] that guy,” he tells us on a Friday afternoon in late July.
Swoon.
Colleen Hoover’s best-selling romance novel follows Lily Bloom, a hard-working flower shop owner who finds herself in a “too good to be true” romance with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid until a chance encounter with her first love Atlas Corrigan begins to change everything. Atlas is the quintessential good guy—but better. He’s a down-to-earth protector who is gorgeous, of course, and whose gentle and comforting demeanor is in stark contrast to the more assertive and stubborn Ryle. Most importantly, Atlas is a healthy version of masculinity.
When actor and director Justin Baldoni optioned the novel to be made into a motion picture, casting directors had one person in mind for Atlas: Sklenar. The actor, however, politely passed. “I honestly had no interest [in] working on anything,” he says. Having just wrapped a physically and emotionally demanding shoot for part one of the American Western drama 1923, he was looking to reconnect with his life and home, not to jump into another project. But casting was persistent.
“I was like, ‘Alright, what is this thing?'” Sklenar says with a laugh. Once he became aware of the significance of the book in the zeitgeist and the impact it had on women all over the world, he took a meeting with Baldoni. “I asked him straight up, Why are you making this movie? Why this? It was his answer to that question that made me want to do it and made me agree to do it,” he says. “His intention in making it was pure and was the same as the book. He was trying to spread the message of the book even further. Once we had that conversation, I was like, ‘I feel like I need to do this now.'”
With its all-too-real characters, the heart-wrenching story delicately handles themes of domestic abuse and one woman’s brave and empowering choice to get out and break the cycle that has dominated her life.
Sklenar connected with this aspect of the story immediately. “I’ve known so many women over the years who have been in a very similar situation as Lily, and I have someone in my life who is very close to me who is unfortunately in a similar situation. It also just became very personal to me,” he says.
Right away, the 34-year-old New Jersey native understood Atlas on an emotional level. No heady prep work was necessary. “Our past life upbringing is not dissimilar,” he says. “For me, it was the first time I had ever done something where I was like, ‘I’m literally just going to show up and be present and see what happens.’ I didn’t do any character work or anything. It’s the most I’ve ever just been myself.”
That experience was both freeing and terrifying for the actor. This time, he couldn’t hide behind an accent choice or hair and makeup. This was genuinely him—the way he talks, the way he walks, his humor. “If people don’t like Atlas, then they just don’t like me,” Sklenar says. It was a huge lesson in trusting that he was enough.
Trust us. He’s enough, especially opposite co-star Blake Lively. Given the incredible chemistry between the two leads on-screen, we are shocked to learn the two didn’t have any auditions together prior to filming and only met for the first time in person on set. Then again, he is Atlas, and the connection is palpable. “It’s probably the top experience I’ve ever had working with an actress in that capacity,” Sklenar says of Lively. “She’s a really special person and so fucking talented, and I just can’t wait for people to go see the movie because I think it’s some of the best work she’s ever done. Truly.”
What remains clear throughout our entire conversation with Sklenar is the positive and life-changing impact It Ends With Us has had on the actor. In his ability to connect with and embrace those parts of himself that were also in Atlas and having it be received well and appreciated, he has found comfort and confidence. Sklenar has come out of the experience able to accept and love himself better, and he’s eased his anxiety and self-criticism.
As skeptical as Sklenar may have been going in, he’s come out a better man and actor. We just have to thank those persistent casting directors.
It Ends With Us is now playing in theaters.
Photographers: Phil Chester and Sara Byrne
Stylist: Madeleine Kennedy
Groomer: Jamie Taylor
