Blake Lively

• 1. Introduction

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  Blake Lively was born Blake Ellender Brown, and as a teenager she planned to attend Stanford University rather than build a career in front of a camera. Then a television network came calling. She was told she could study part-time while filming its show, but nobody would put that promise on paper. She later turned the episode into a warning: "This is advice to anyone: when they say, 'We promise, but we can't put it in writing,' there's a reason they can't put it in writing."

  The decision she made that year shaped everything after it. She went on to star in teen drama, thrillers, comedies and romances. She directed a music video for Taylor Swift. She also put her name on bakery treats, drink mixers and haircare.

  This documentary asks how a reluctant child performer became a lead actress and a businesswoman. It asks what the family around her contributed, and which roles mattered most. It also asks what happened when one of her most successful films became the center of a legal fight.

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• 2. A Family Trade

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  Tarzana, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, is where Blake Ellender Brown was born on the 25th of August 1987. Her mother, Elaine Lively, worked as a talent scout. Her father, Ernie Lively, was an actor who had been born with the surname Brown. She was named after her grandmother's brother.

  She grew up with an older brother, Eric, and three half-siblings from her mother's earlier marriage: Lori, Robyn and Jason. Every one of them, along with her parents, worked in entertainment.

  At home, there were no babysitters to speak of. Her parents taught acting classes, and they simply took her along. She later said that watching them teach gave her the "drills" and, as she got older, the confidence to work in the industry herself.

  At age 10, she appeared in Sandman, a 1998 film directed by her father. She describes her part as a "bit part."

  High school looked ordinary on paper. She graduated from Burbank High School in 2005, where she cheered, sang in a championship choir and served as class president. Her older brother then asked his own talent agent to send her to several auditions over the summer months.

  That led to the role of Bridget in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She filmed her scenes between her junior and senior years of school. When the film came out in 2005, her performance earned a Teen Choice Award nomination for "Choice Movie Breakout - Female." Two years later, a network drama would put her face in front of a far larger audience.

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• 3. Serena van der Woodsen

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  In September 2007, The CW premiered Gossip Girl, a drama adapted from the novel series by Cecily von Ziegesar. Lively played Serena van der Woodsen, and she stayed with the role until the series ended in 2012. Her main-cast run covered 121 episodes.

  The November 2007 issue of CosmoGirl gave her a first magazine cover. In the interview, she talked about her high school years and the work she had done before the show.

  In 2009, she hosted Saturday Night Live. Her episode was titled "Blake Lively/Rihanna." That same year she appears in the awards listings for the ASTRA Award category of Favourite International Personality or Actor, for Gossip Girl.

  The awards tables show how steadily the show kept her in view. The Teen Choice Awards list her in the Choice TV Actress Drama category in 2008, 2009, 2010-2011 and 2013. The People's Choice Awards list her as Favorite TV Drama Actress in 2010-2011 and 2012.

  Serena was the work that made her famous. When the series ended in 2012, she had already spent years building a film career alongside it.

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• 4. Supporting Parts

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  Justin Long was her co-star in Accepted, the 2006 comedy that critics did not like. Her own notices were better. They earned her a Breakthrough Award from Hollywood Life.

  In 2007, she played Anabelle in Elvis and Anabelle, a girl with bulimia who hopes to win a beauty pageant. Preparing for the part, she said she had to "shed serious weight" for her height. She found that hard, because food was "the No. 1 love of my life."

  The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 brought her back as Bridget in 2008. Critics again responded well. By November 2008, the film had earned more than $44 million at the box office.

  The following year, she played Gabrielle DiMarco in New York, I Love You, a follow-up to the 2006 film Paris, je t'aime. Reviewers were positive, but audiences stayed away. She also played the younger version of the title character in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, and critics were warm. Paul Byrnes of the Brisbane Times called her work "sensational."

  In October 2009, she began filming The Town, based on Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves. Ben Affleck directed and starred, and the film reached American cinemas on the 17th of September 2010. She played Kristina "Kris" Coughlin. Variety said she was "almost unrecognizable" and had "fierce, pained moments as the moll and single mother."

  Green Lantern followed in June 2011. She played Carol Ferris, the love interest of Hal Jordan, and the film earned $219,851,172 worldwide. That year she also appeared among the Time 100 influential people.

  In 2012, Oliver Stone cast her in Savages, alongside Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, Salma Hayek and John Travolta. She took the part of Ophelia after Jennifer Lawrence left to make The Hunger Games. HitFix critic Drew McWeeny called her performance "smart and sad precisely because she plays O as such a broken, needy little soul."

  After Savages, her work shifted decisively toward starring roles.

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• 5. Leading Lady

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  Harrison Ford and Michiel Huisman were her co-stars in The Age of Adaline, released in 2015. She played a woman who stops aging after a near-fatal accident. The Atlantic said the film showed her "potential as a leading lady," mostly in its second half, and praised her "clipped delivery and coy restraint."

  In 2016, she starred in The Shallows, a survival horror film. Reviews were positive, and critics praised her performance. That year she also appeared in Woody Allen's Café Society, which premiered at the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

  On the press tour, a reporter asked about working with Allen given the abuse allegations made by his daughter, Dylan Farrow. Lively said it was "dangerous to factor in things you don't know anything about." She indicated she had not studied the allegations in detail. She added that she could speak only for herself, and she called Allen "empowering to women."

  All I See Is You, with Jason Clarke, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016 to mixed reviews.

  Paul Feig directed A Simple Favor, released on the 14th of September 2018. Lively starred opposite Anna Kendrick and Henry Golding. Variety described her character, Emily, as "both repellent and irresistible." Some critics predicted her first Academy Award nomination, but it never came.

  On the 31st of January 2020, Paramount Pictures released The Rhythm Section. Based on a novel by Mark Burnell, it was produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson and directed by Reed Morano. Lively played a drug-addicted prostitute turned assassin. Variety said her "realistic near-incompetence in the face of danger" made her "relatable in ways very few cinematic assassins have ever been."

  Her next steps took her behind the camera. In May 2021, it was announced that she would play Josie Schuller in Lady Killer. She co-wrote and directed the music video for Taylor Swift's "I Bet You Think About Me," featuring Chris Stapleton. It was released on the 15th of November 2021 from Red (Taylor's Version). The video later drew nominations for Video of the Year from the Academy of Country Music and Music Video of the Year from the Country Music Association.

  In April 2022, she was announced as the director of a feature adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel Seconds, with Edgar Wright writing and producing. Then, in January 2023, she was announced as the lead in an adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel, It Ends with Us.

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• 6. Kitchen and Ventures

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  Martha Stewart is the person Lively calls her "idol," and in 2008 the two baked a cake together on The Martha Stewart Show. Lively describes herself as a "foodie and cook" and says she is also a fan of Nigella Lawson.

  In 2010, she attended a tailor-made workshop at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and she has said she wants to go back. When she travels, she says, she always takes cookery classes to absorb the local culture. She has also spoken about wanting to become a restaurateur.

  The food interest spilled into her public work. In 2011, she created a s'mores cupcake sold at Sprinkles bakeries. Her 2012 wedding reception was featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, with food photography as the focus of the spread. In 2013, Elle Decor profiled the custom La Cornue oven she designed for her newly purchased Bedford home. That year she also filmed a Vogue website segment on making a brie pastry.

  Preserve arrived in 2014. It was a digital magazine and online shop selling hand-made, one-of-a-kind items that Lively chose herself. In October 2014, it published a fashion editorial titled "Allure of Antebellum." Critics said the pictures romanticized an era defined by slavery by focusing on imagery tied to the white Southern elite.

  In October 2015, she closed the site, saying it had launched before it was ready. She said she planned to rebuild and relaunch it properly. In 2025, six former Preserve staffers alleged a "toxic" working environment, and one allegedly received a settlement of up to $300,000 after threatening legal action.

  More recent companies have been drinks and beauty. Betty Buzz, a line of non-alcoholic mixers, launched in 2021. Betty Booze, a line of canned alcoholic cocktails, followed in 2023. In 2024 came Blake Brown, a cruelty-free haircare line.

  Her name also sold other people's products. In 2011, she became a spokeswoman for the Chanel Mademoiselle handbag. In 2012, she was the face of the Gucci fragrance Gucci Premiere, and Nicolas Winding Refn directed a short film ad for it. In October 2013, she became a spokeswoman for L'Oreal.

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• 7. Public Life

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  MoveOn.org's Youth Vote program produced a commercial in 2008 supporting Barack Obama, and Lively appeared in it. Her co-star was Penn Badgley, her partner from 2007 to 2010. Doug Liman directed the spot, which aired during Gossip Girl on the CW, MTV and Comedy Central.

  In 2013, she appeared in a video clip for Gucci's "Chime for Change" campaign. It raises funds and awareness for women's issues in education, health and justice. She has also worked to draw attention to missing and exploited children and to the efforts of law enforcement on their behalf.

  Ryan Reynolds was her co-star in Green Lantern, and she first met him in early 2010 while it was filming. They started dating in October 2011.

  They married on the 9th of September 2012 at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The site is historically associated with enslaved African Americans. The choice drew criticism, particularly when public discussion of racial justice was renewed beginning in 2020. In August of that year, the couple publicly apologized and expressed deep regret. They then donated $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

  They have four children: three daughters, born in December 2014, September 2016 and October 2019, and a son, born in February 2023. The family lives in Pound Ridge, New York. Taylor Swift named the characters in her song "Betty" after the daughters, and she is godmother to all three.

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• 8. The Lawsuit

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  The weekend of the 9th to the 11th of August 2024 gave Lively and Reynolds a rare distinction. Her film It Ends with Us took the number one spot at the box office, and his Deadpool & Wolverine took number two. No married Hollywood couple had managed two films at the top that way since Bruce Willis and Demi Moore in 1990. Lively also had a voice cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine as Lady Deadpool.

  In It Ends with Us she played Lily Bloom and served as an executive producer. Her co-star and director was Justin Baldoni. The making of the film drew substantial coverage in the media and on social media.

  Several months after the production and release, she filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department. She alleged sexual harassment and retaliation, which she said resulted in a smear campaign by the film's director and co-star, Baldoni. She then filed a federal lawsuit.

  Baldoni countersued for defamation. That suit was dismissed in June 2025.

  In April 2026, the judge dismissed 10 of Lively's 13 claims. Her remaining claims were settled out of court in May 2026.

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