It Ends With Us Screenwriter Says It 'Felt Important' to Add That Pro-Choice Line to the Movie (Exclusive)

Note: This article contains spoilers for It Ends With Us, in theaters now.

Lily's discovery that she's pregnant with Ryle's child is one of the most emotional scenes in It Ends With Us, both in Colleen Hoover's 2016 book and the new movie adaptation. The storyline, though, plays out subtly differently onscreen.

A visit to the hospital with Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) after Ryle (Justin Baldoni) assaults Lily (Blake Lively) leaves her rattled to her core as she learns she's pregnant. Atlas then takes her to his house to rest and recover. While there, she expresses her fears about motherhood, and he says if she chooses to keep it, she'll be a great mom.

The comment is brief, but the film's screenwriter Christy Hall tells PEOPLE it "felt important" to include.

"I think the novel is pitch perfect, but it was also written a few years ago, so there were ways that we could very respectfully modernize it," she says.

"In the book, the way the pregnancy is talked about, it's talked about in a way where everyone is just automatically assuming that she's going to have it and she's going to keep it. It's already automatic the way that Atlas talks about it, the way that Ryle talks about it, the way that even Lily thinks about it," Hall says.

"There's never even a question. There's this automatic, 'Well, this is what you're going to do, obviously,' " she adds. 

The screenwriter, who most recently wrote and directed Daddio, adds, "There's a lot of different nuances to what Atlas is saying. And it just felt important to acknowledge that it should be more of a conversation than just a pressurized assumption without any choices at her fingertips whatsoever."

The storyline of Lily's pregnancy is one that saw a few major changes onscreen compared to the novel, and Hall says it all comes down to "real estate."

"This is a very dense book. I know it doesn't seem like it is, but when you start to attempt the task of adap -

‘The Traitors’ Renewed for T,...

ting it, there's a lot of meat on the bone, in a good way," she explains.

The exact dynamic between Lily and Ryle after their fight and how Ryle discovers Lily's pregnancy is explored less in the movie, and that's just another thing Hall says they had to "truncate" as a means of being "really thoughtful of runtime."

Luckily, Hall's favorite scene from the book made the cut, which isn't surprising, given it's the meet-cute for Lily and Ryle. "The roof scene was probably the trickiest one to tackle, in that I think the roof scene is perfect in the novel," she says.

Her first go at the scene was 10 pages. "That's probably the scene that I spent the most time with, just really whittling down and really working with Colleen on whittling down what are the things that have to happen in the scene, and then what are the things that don't have to happen?"

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

At the New York City premiere of the film, Lively said her husband Ryan Reynolds contributed dialogue to the rooftop scene, which opens the book. Hall says Reynolds' involvement is not something she was aware of.

"There were a couple of little things that I thought had been improvised. Like when Ryle says, 'Pretty please with a cherry on top,' and Lily talks about the maraschino cherries. When I saw a cut I was like, 'Oh, that's cute. That must have been a cute improvised thing.' So if I'm being told that Ryan wrote that, then great, how wonderful."

Ultimately, though, she says she's "very proud" of her work. "The moments that I felt like needed to be honored are there. So I recognize the scene and I'm proud of the scene. And if those flourishes came from Ryan, I think that's wonderful."

It Ends With Us is in theaters now.

Related Articles

Follow Us

It’s No ‘Iron Giant,’ ,...