Blake Lively appears at ‘Another Simple Favor’ premiere amid lawsuits
Blake Lively made a public appearance at SXSW as she and “It Ends With Us” director Justin Baldoni litigate alleged on-set misconduct in court.
Spoiler alert! We’re discussing plot details from “Another Simple Favor” (streaming now on Prime Video). Beware if you haven’t seen it, because we don’t want ruin the viewing experience.
AUSTIN, Texas – Those who have gulped down “Another Simple Favor” like a meticulously made gin martini finally know what “curveball idea” Blake Lively alluded to at the sequel’s South by Southwest premiere.
The actress told the festival audience that just prior to filming, director Paul Feig approached her with a new concept: Emily being a romantic interest of her obsessive sister Charity, also played by Lively.
“It was very uncomfortable to watch in this theater with you all fine folks,” Lively joked of a scene in which Charity makes advances on a sedated Emily. “That was my own personal torture!”
When returning to his characters ‒ true crime-consumed mommy vlogger Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) and con-in-Christian Louboutin Emily Nelson (Lively) − Feig longed “to preserve the twists and turns and the unexpected” of the 2018 original “and try to take it to the next level.”
As Stephanie investigates the disappearance of the enigmatic Emily in “A Simple Favor,” she discovers her new bestie (born Hope McLanden) faked her own death. Emily killed her identical triplet sister Faith to use her body in the supposed drowning. Charity, the third sister, supposedly died at birth, but it is revealed in “Another Simple Favor” that Aunt Linda (Allison Janney) kidnapped Charity and raised her as an accomplice to her grifts.
“The criticism that came out of certain critics for the first movie was that, ‘The third act goes off the rails! It gets so crazy,’ ” Feig says. “But that’s the purpose of these movies. These movies and these characters are supposed to get crazy. That’s the world I want to create within because I love entertainment that is maximalist, that really goes for it.”
Charity feels strongly that she and Emily should be together, so she poses as the bride in her wedding to Mafioso Dante Versano (Michele Morrone), who is murdered on his wedding night. Charity longs to be her sister’s everything, including her, well, lover.
“That,” Feig says with a nervous chuckle, “was inspired by − I was an only child growing up, and I was super-awkward with girls and was terrified to ask them out. And I would always have this fantasy of like, if I could clone myself, I could just date myself.” To clarify, Feig dreamed of being with a clone, “a carbon copy of myself that would know exactly what I wanted,” not a sibling.
For “Another Simple Favor,” he thought, “ ‘Well, Charity’s such a mess, this character who’s been raised by herself, and so lonely and put in these weird situations that she would probably be wanting that, too.’ That’s why she keeps saying, ‘We are one. There’s not you and me. We are just one.’ ”
When Lively heard his idea, she was on board, Feig says. “She was like, ‘Let’s do it. I’m going to trust you.’ ”
And like the sisters, Feig also feels this franchise is fit to be a trilogy.
“The evolution of Stephanie, I’m really fascinated by,” he says. “Because I think where Stephanie ends up at the end of ‘Another Simple Favor’ is a good jumping-off point to a new life situation for her that I’ve got in my head.”
It won’t be a happily ever after with Emily’s ex-husband, Sean Townsend (Henry Golding), murdered in the shower.
“I think Stephanie maybe needs to move on to somebody a little more stable than Sean,” Feig says with a laugh.
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