Blake Lively‘s Another Simple Favor costar Michele Morrone didn’t just become close friends with his onscreen love interest — but her husband, Ryan Reynolds, as well.
In Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip from the Friday, May 2, episode of Tommy DiDario‘s “I’ve Never Said This Before” podcast, Morrone, 34, recalled the unexpected way he developed a close bond with both Lively, 37, and Reynolds, 48.
“We became such great friends. We had made such a great relationship between us. We are like brother and sister. I am such good friends with Ryan as well,” he noted. “We became like family. We talk with each other every week to check on each other like, ‘How are you? Do you need anything? I am here for you.’”
Morrone credited the “downtime” on the set of Prime Video’s Another Simple Favor for paving the way, adding, “We just bonded. Because I think Blake started — like me — on set [and] I made a weird joke. We were talking about our parents and what they do, and we were just sitting and waiting to start shooting.”
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During the candid conversation, Morrone mentioned that his father died 20 years prior and chose to make the moment more light-hearted. He jokingly told Lively that his dad passed away when a trip to the zoo turned into his father falling into a cage and getting “eaten by a lion.”
Lively initially thought Morrone was joking — which he was — but the actor didn’t admit it. Instead, he continued to keep a straight face and that caused Lively to apologize for making light of the situation.
“I was like, ‘I want to make a joke.’ I suffered in pain [from that loss] forever, so I wanted to make a joke,” he explained. “I kept going with it. She felt so bad that at a certain point I couldn’t handle it anymore and I started laughing. From that moment, me and Blake became very close. She has the same [sense of humor]. She is funny like me and we clicked in that moment.”
Morrone was grateful to have found friends who understood his sense of humor.
“Sometimes people think there should be boundaries and we laugh. Sometimes it is more healthy to be a little bit less intense,” he continued. “It is OK to laugh, and we don’t have to take everything seriously so we clicked.”
In addition to hearing more about Morrone and Lively’s bond on DiDario’s podcast, viewers will have a front row seat with the release of Prime Video’s Another Simple Favor. The film, which was released on Thursday, May 1, is a sequel to A Simple Favor, which follows a twisted friendship between a small-town vlogger (Anna Kendrick) and her mysterious friend (Lively).
Another Simple Favor is set at Emily’s (Lively) extravagant wedding to an Italian businessman (Morrone) on the island of Capri, Italy. It is also Lively’s first project to debut since she made headlines for her lawsuit against It Ends With Us costar Justin Baldoni.
Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, creating a “hostile work environment” and causing her “severe emotional distress” while working together in a December 2024 lawsuit. Baldoni, for his part, has since filed a lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and Lively’s publicist, seeking $400 million in damages related to accusations of civil extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and other claims. (Both parties have denied the claims made against each other.)
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Morrone, meanwhile, has publicly shown his support for both Lively and Reynolds.
“It’s usually not my thing to make those kinds of videos, but I think it’s time to stand up for a person I really love and this person is Blake Lively,” Morrone said via Instagram Story in December 2024. “I personally met Blake during A Simple Favor 2. We shot this incredible film together and I felt something was wrong, and I felt the pain.”
Morrone noted that he was “really tired” of seeing “cruel and bad comments” about Lively “without knowing the situation.”
“We had the opportunity to talk, me and her, [and] Blake was in pain,” he recalled before linking to a New York Times article about Lively’s complaints. “Blake, I love you so much. Keep it up and we’re going to see each other very soon. Love you.”
Another Simple Favor is streaming now on Prime Video.
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