Fire Island's Matt Rogers Reveals He Auditioned for Atlas inIt Ends With Us: 'I Had to Cry' and 'Be Straight'

Mar. 15, 2025

Matt Rogers; Brandon Sklenar as Atlas in ‘It Ends With Us’.Photo:PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty, Nancy Rivera/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty, Nancy Rivera/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Fire Islandactor Matt Rogers revealed he auditioned for an “atypical” role — and it didn’t exactly go to plan.

On the Aug. 14 episode of hisLas Culturistaspodcast, the comedian, 34, told co-hostBowen Yangthat he filmed an audition tape for the character Atlas Corrigan,Blake Lively’s on-screen love interest inIt Ends with Us.

Before diving into theongoing drama among the film’s cast and crew, including director-starJustin Baldoni, Rogers said, “I actually auditioned for this movie. I got a new agent, and I think he was trying to send me on more atypical things.”

“Okay, this was funny,” he continued, adding that he filmed the tape during “the week of my breakup last year.”

Las Culturistas co-hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.John Nacion/Getty

John Nacion/Getty

Rogers continued with a laugh, “It was just so funny because me crying as a straight man I don’t really think plays.”

Added Yang, “Well, you were raw enough to deliver on the crying but … it’s too much, the wires get too crossed.”

Rogers, who also appeared on the seriesI Love That for You, added, “Because it’s like, you’re not supposed to have those checkpoints where you’re thinking too hard about how you’re expressing the emotion, the emotion should just be there or in a way that you can restrain it then give it. Meanwhile, I was not in control of my emotions.”

“And you think, ‘Oh, this is a great opportunity to go on tape for something emotional because I am,’ and then it just didn’t match up with whatever,” he continued, before joking that he “obviously didn’t book” the role.

“You’re not going to see me making love to Blake Lively in cinema, I don’t think, anytime soon,” he added.

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Blake Lively and Brandon Sklenar in “It Ends With Us”.Jojo Whilden

Jojo Whilden

InIt Ends With Us,an adaptation of the bestsellingColleen Hoovernovel of the same name, the role of Atlas ultimately went to Sklenar, 34, while Baldoni played Ryle Kincaid.

Bringing Hoover’s hit novel to life was a rollercoaster, Sklenar shared earlier this summer. “I mean, it’s been a trip. Honestly, I had no expectations of these things, and I’ve been kind of blown away with the response to everything,” he said during a June 14 Book Bonanza panel.

Elsewhere during the event, he revealed that the most challenging part 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.”

It Ends With Usis in theaters now.

source: people.com