When Justin Baldoni directed – and participated in – It ends with ushe made sure to add some subtle tributes to his two children.

“I put my family in all my movies,” Baldoni, 40, told Exclusive Us Weekly on Wednesday, October 23, while discussing his Purina partnership and mentions that his wife, Emily Baldonihad cameos in his directorial projects Five feet apart, clouds and It ends with us.

Based on Colleen Hoovers best-selling novel of the same name, It ends with us followed an abusive relationship between Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) and Ryle Kincaid (Justin). Emily, 40, is also an actress and appeared as the nurse who informed Lively’s Lily that she was having a daughter. The special cameo appearances didn’t stop there.

“I have some Easter eggs in the movie dedicated to my kids,” Justin shares daughter Maiya and son Maxwell with Emily, told Usadding that they also make cameos on the big screen. “There is a scene in the It ends with us where you start with two kids, you see the back of their heads run into a crowd and you see the farmer’s market. These are my children.”

Family: Justin Baldoni writes a heartfelt message to survivors of domestic violence

It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni has paid tribute to domestic violence survivors, sharing an open letter written in their honour. Baldoni shared the inspirational words via her Instagram on Friday, Aug. 30, crediting those who have endured domestic violence with positive qualities such as “resilience,” “courage” and an “unwavering spirit.” “Dear (…)

Maiya, 9, and Maxwell, 7, were “so proud” to witness their dad’s work up close, he ran to Us.

“They told all their friends they’re in Dad’s movie,” he mused Wednesday. “I always try to bring my family into my movies. It’s a family thing, you know? That’s why I do it.”

One of the reasons Justin signed on It ends with us was to help raise awareness and draw attention to the epidemic of intimate partner violence — the Jane the Virgin alum is a passionate advocate for dismantling the concept of toxic masculinity.

“In the eight-plus years that I’ve been talking about this publicly, I’ve always tried hard not to say ‘toxic masculinity’ and the reason is that it’s one of those words that have been phrases that have been politicized and you lose a bunch of people” , Justin explained. “In my experience, a word is not worth it. If 50 percent of people won’t hear my message because of a phrase, then I don’t need to say the message because I want to reach people where they are. So for me it’s about healthy masculinity.”

He added, “I always like to approach things from the positive versus the negative. There’s so much doom and gloom in the world. There’s so much negativity. The question is, ‘Can we step away from things and think about it from a positive lens?’ I love being a man. I love being alive. We live in such an exciting time.”

According to Justin, men – and all individuals regardless of gender – “struggle” with loneliness, schoolwork and more.

“(Men) are the driving force behind all crime, both man-on-man crime, which is the highest level of crime, but also, with the film I just did It ends with usone in four women nationally is a victim of intimate partner violence, says Justin. “And the majority of this is in the hands of men. Now we know that men are victims of this as well, but the vast majority of crimes that are committed are from men. … I think there’s a cry for help. There’s a cry for community right now. We want to be good men. We want to be better men.”

Instead of putting labels on people, Justin believes that “we as men need to do a better job of supporting” others and “creating safe spaces.”

“We have to learn to build each other up versus tearing each other down for dominance and power and gaining power in a hierarchy,” Justin said Us on Wednesday. “I’ve learned that we are all works in progress, that the work is imperfect, and that healing is not linear.”

Justin tries to take all the lessons he has and continues to learn and apply them to their work. He recently teamed up with Purina Dog Chow to announce the winner of the “Service Dog Salute” category on 9th Annual NY Dog Film Festival. (The category aims to highlight stories of PTSD service dogs and how they help military veterans.)

“I always try to be of service in whatever I do,” Justin said. “This (partnership) was really unique because I spent so much time working in the masculinity space and so much time advocating for emotional courage and trying to help men see that emotional bravery is as important as, if not more important than, just fiscal courage.”

He continued, “My heart just went out to all these men because I thought, and women who had the courage to be diagnosed because it’s a great thing to be a veteran, to be someone who fought for our country, to have witnessed the horrors that happened during the war, to have PTSD, to come back to try and enjoy living a life, to have a job, to have a family and to be willing to go and be diagnosed is such a huge emotional feat of courage that I don’t think it is talked about enough.”

With reporting by Travis Cronin