This is Ryan Reynolds in Spain promoting Safe House with Denzel Washington. They’re on the press tour through Europe before the North American premiere. I’m told Ryan said a very sweet goodbye to his girlfriend Blake Lively the other day and that she sent him away with a care package that included homemade baked goods. Amazingly no photographers were around.

This of course happened before news broke yesterday that Blake had lost out to Rooney Mara for the lead role in the new Steven Soderbergh movie. Click here   for Sarah’s report on that story. Yes, actors lose out on parts all the time. See Jessica Biel.  But this cannot be good no matter how you spin it if you are running Blake’s career because the perception is that she had it and then lost it, which leaves everyone else to question her ability. Remember she’s been auditioning for almost everything, including Daisy in Baz Lurhmann’s The Great Gatsby. Right now, it seems like she loses out on more than she actually wins.  Interestingly enough was it her people who jumped the gun on leaking it too early that she had secured the role. If so, as we now know, ultimately that turned out to be a very bad play and a rare misstep in what has been a very seemingly impressive PR strategy from Lively in the last nine months.  Seemingly because, well other than securing my admiration for being a major baller, professionally there have been few gains. Maybe it’s time then to let the work do the selling if she is as good as Oliver Stone says she is in Savages.  At this point you have to bank everything on that.