Taylor Swift Sets Deal To Direct a Movie
The successful singer-songwriter has plenty of experience with music videos and short film ‘All Too Well’ but has set up a full-length film at Searchlight.
Taylor Swift in the 'Love Story' video. Courtesy of Taylor Swift's YouTube channel.
Though she’s long since proved herself as a powerhouse creator for songwriting and performance, Taylor Swift’s directorial career has so far stretched to music videos for her tracks and, more recently, short film ‘All Too Well’.
Now, she’s making the jump to full-fledged film director with an untitled movie for Searchlight.
“Taylor is a once in a generation artist and storyteller. It is a genuine joy and privilege to collaborate with her as she embarks on this exciting and new creative journey,” Searchlight presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield say in a statement.
The new movie is being kept quiet for now––all we really know is that it’ll draw from a script that Swift has written. Beyond that, we’ll have to wait for casting and other announcements. But we’d be shocked if the movie didn’t have some relationship element, given the usual emotional depth of the performer’s songs.
Swift made history at this year’s VMA Awards as the only solo artist ever to be honored with two Best Direction awards for her work on ‘All Too Well’ and ‘The Man’. She is the first artist ever to win three Video of the Year awards and only the second female to direct the winning video for Best Longform Video with ‘All Too Well’. The short is also eligible for an Oscar.
Taylor Swift in 'All Too Well: The Short Film (Behind The Scenes).' Courtesy of Taylor Swift's YouTube channel.
And it’s not like she hasn’t been connected to movies in the past. A wealth of films and trailers have used her music, and she’s also shown up in front of the camera too.
Her first appearance (outside of acting as herself in ‘Jonas Brothers: The Concert Experience’ and ‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’ was in 2010’s ‘Valentine’s Day’, where she played Felicia, the girlfriend of Taylor Lautner’s track star Willy. The pair ended up dating briefly in real life.
She followed that up with a voice role in Illumination’s 2012 animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ ‘The Lorax’, playing Audrey alongside the likes of Danny DeVito, Ed Helms and Betty White.
Next was ‘Cats’ (though she, along with many of her co-stars might rather wish to forget it), playing perky cat Bombalurina in the CG/live-action musical adaptation, for which she also collaborated on a new song, ‘Beautiful Ghosts’.
‘All Too Well’ saw her in front of the camera as well as behind it, and more recently, she had a small role in David O. Russell’s ‘Amsterdam’ as Liz Meekins, the worried daughter of a recently deceased military man who is convinced he was murdered. That saw her sharing scenes with the likes of Christian Bale and John David Washington and gave her the chance to sing on screen.
We don’t yet know whether she’ll appear in the new movie, but we’re fairly confident she will write music for it.
Taylor Swift in the 'Anti-Hero' video. Courtesy of Taylor Swift's YouTube channel.
