Baldoni has come a long way from being the beefcake beauty on “Jane the Virgin,” where his frequent shirtlessness became part of the show’s appeal. In his TED Talk, he took playful potshots at his own pin-up image and his uncomfortable relationship with those shirtless scenes. But while he’s careful to avoid “It Ends With Us” spoilers, there is one thing he can reveal, albeit sheepishly: He does take off his shirt in the movie.
“I had a lot of anxiety about it,” he admits, laughing. “I had been training not to look good for a while—I’ve been training to feel good and, honestly, I’ve had some back issues. I wasn’t able to move the way that I used to or run the way that I used to. As I was getting closer to 40, I noticed my metabolism changing. I have two kids, and I’m not sleeping as much. I thought to myself, ‘I haven’t even had time to work out—how am I going to do this?’ So I was nervous about it because of the way he’s described in the book. I felt an obligation to try to look similar to the way that the fans [thought of] him, but I didn’t want to be shirtless in every scene.”
While he prepares for the “It Ends With Us” press tour, he’s also thinking about Wayfarer’s future. At the meeting I attend, he and his team discuss upcoming projects, including “Will & Harper,” which will be getting an awards campaign from Netflix. And, of course, there’s his live-action Pac-Man film, which was announced in 2022. Baldoni can’t go into much detail—I got a glimpse at some initial ideas, but I can’t talk about them—but he does see the movie as continuing Wayfarer’s commitment to films of substance. “We have the idea of what it can be,” he says, “but how do you make it meaningful? Figuring out how to make a big tentpole, four-quadrant kind of family action-adventure movie for both a nine-year-old and a 60-year-old? That’s exciting to me.”
Earlier, when everyone went around the room in the meeting talking about what’s bringing them joy, Baldoni shared his relief that he’s at the end of a health scare that started more than a month ago. He’s doing better now, but he had to be in the hospital for a week, which made him think about his life. It also validated his wife’s insistence that he needs to start taking it a little more easy.
“I’ve been listening to my wife for 12 years about slowing down, and it wasn’t until maybe this last two years ago that I’ve really been taking that to heart,” he admits. “But [“It Ends With Us”]—acting and directing—it was a challenging film because of the amount of hats that I was wearing. Then you end up in the hospital with some random infection and you’re like, ‘Oh, got to slow down.’”