Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’s Unlikely Obsession

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’s Unlikely Obsession

If a five-minute conversation with Blake Lively at a Cannes Film Festival luncheon for Café Society is any indication, the actress is heaven. Director Woody Allen and cast members Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, and Corey Stoll took turns answering questions at each press table on Thursday afternoon, and when it was time for Lively to sit opposite us, she glided over in a marigold designer dress, promptly fixed herself a full plate of food, and made a self-deprecating joke about how Cannes is so much more glamorous than her everyday life—“being peed on all day.” After a beat, she quickly clarified, “by my baby,” referring to her and Ryan Reynolds’s daughter James, “not my husband.”

The actress revealed that she took the role in Allen's latest feature before knowing anything about the film, even the time period during which it would take place because she is such an old Hollywood film buff. She referenced specific camera shots in certain films of Allen's, and when Anne Thompson of Indiewire remarked on Lively's vast movie knowledge, the actress let us in on her secret.

“I watch a lot of TCM,” Lively said. “TCM is the best. It's always on at our house. Sometimes on silent. It's like the fun version of gossip.”

For those at the table who had never heard of the classic movie channel, Lively explained, “Now the gossip is, well most of it is made up. But [the channel teaches you] about Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, and how she had never been in a comedy before. So they surrounded her with vaudeville actors and comic extras, even behind the monitor. And they were there at all times helping bring out that side of her.”

“And you watch her in that movie. It's one of the best pratfalls of all time—better than any Chevy Chasepratfall—is her falling over that table,” she gushed, as we attempted to wish into existence a television movie in which Lively plays Hepburn on the Bringing Up Baby set. “But it's neat hearing about those behind-the-scenes moments.”

“I love that on TCM they will have the children of the actors and directors on to speak about their parents—there's a level of intimacy that is nice because it's so respectful,” Blakely said, poking at her plate. “Do you guys watch TCM?”

When New York Magazine’s Kyle Buchanan suggested she get a gig hosting a program for the network, Lively was one step ahead with her family's own plan.

“That's my husband's dream job—is just to be Ben Mankiewicz or Robert Osbourne,” Lively said, referring to the network's talking heads.