Blake Lively was the one who recommended director Paul Feig to cast her It Ends With Us costar Brandon Sklenar in his upcoming film Housemaid.
During a recent chat with E! News Feig, who has also worked with Lively on 2018's A Simple Favor and its 2025 sequel Another Simple Favor, said, "Blake Lively had just worked with Brandon. She just kept going on and on about how great he is. And I met him and was like, 'Yes, you are great and I love you.'"
While Sklenar shared on Today, during his recent appearance, that Sydney Sweeney was the one who insisted on casting him for the Housemaid.
"I was surprised, honestly, that she did that. I was like, 'Me? Really?' Alright," he said jokingly. "I was, you know, playing a cowboy a hundred years ago and I have never done a white-collar, contemporary man."
"But, yeah, I was honored and thrilled that she saw I could potentially do that, and the producers were on board and Paul Feig was on board," Sklenar shared at the time. "I had lunch with Paul Feig, actually, and we just hit it off big time. ... He's just an exceptional human being."
In an earlier appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Feig shared that he met Sklenar on a lunch, but said Lively was the one who recommended him for the role.
"Blake had just worked with Brandon on It Ends With Us, and she was still in the middle of shooting all that stuff when we were doing Simple Favor, they [were] doing reshoots. And she was like, ‘I’m working with this guy and he’s so amazing. You’ve got to meet Brandon,'" he recalled.
"I was like, 'Alright, I'll have lunch with Brandon.' He walks in, and within 30 seconds I'm like jelly. The most charismatic guy you’ve ever met in your life and so talented," Feig added.
