Meeting Blake Lively a highlight for Brandon Sklenar in It Ends with Us journey

After wrapping up filming for “It Ends with Us,” Blake Lively and Brandon Sklenar reflected on their journey.

At a Q&A panel for Book Bonanza, moderated by Entertainment Tonight on Friday, June 14, the co-stars, portraying on-screen love interests Lily Bloom and Atlas Corrigan, shared their experiences of bringing Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel to life.

Sklenar’s first thought? “Oh, boy.”

“I mean, it's been a trip,” the actor, 33, said, adding, “Honestly, I had no expectations of these things, and I've been kind of blown away with the response to everything.”

The most challenging part, according to Sklenar, was playing “a character where there's so many people’s idea [of] who he is and how he's meant [to] be, how he's meant to look.”

“And just sort of divorcing yourself from that and letting yourself, you know, do your thing with it and not be weighed down by what you think people might want to see or how they want to see it,” he added. “And just sort of let that go and just do what you do.”

Sklenar expressed that one of the highlights of his journey was collaborating with the "powerhouse ladies" Lively, aged 36, and Hoover, aged 44, who joined him at the Grapevine, Texas event.

“Colleen and I definitely spent some time and got to know each other and she's just such a lovely, lovely person,” he said, noting that it has also been “fantastic meeting Blake Lively.”

Skelnar is “such a big Gossip Girl fan,” meeting Lively “finally”  may have been “the most exciting part” of the entire process, he later shared.