'IF': John Krasinski 'emotionally blackmailed' Blake Lively to come aboard
John Krasinski, the writer-director of the upcoming film IF, has assembled an impressive voice cast for his project. During his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he revealed that this film received "the most yeses of my career" and "the fastest yeses". Among those lending their voices are Bradley Cooper, George Clooney, Blake Lively, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, among others. It will be released on May 17.
Character details for Cooper and Lively
Krasinski shared some intriguing details about the characters in IF. Cooper lends his voice to an ice cube character who is "from Philly, and he's a little bummed to be living in Arizona." Lively voices "a cat who's getting over her fear of water, so she dresses like an octopus." Krasinski humorously admitted using "emotional blackmail" to get Lively on board, telling her that "Everybody's doing it." Lively's husband-actor Ryan Reynolds plays the main lead.
Clooney is the driving force behind Krasinski's directorial career
Further in the show, Krasinski humorously suggested that Clooney's character is a continuation of his role from Gravity. They earlier worked together on the 2008 film Leatherheads. In fact, Clooney spurred Krasinski on and told him during the shooting of the film, "'Well, you're not just going to be an actor, right? You're going to go on to direct.' And I went, 'Pfft, yeah.' I had no idea. He did before I did."
'IF' inspired by Krasinski's observations of his children
The idea for IF came to Krasinski about 10 years ago, but he only started writing it during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was inspired by watching his children play in a magical world of their imagination, which they began to do less as they grew older. "The world started to come in, and I went, 'That's it. I'm writing this movie right now to prove to you that magical world is always there, and you can always go back."
