Paul Schrader Solicits Taylor Swift Stories: ‘There’s a Movie There’

Brian Welk
·2 min read
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Have you heard about this Taylor Swift gal? Turns out she’s pretty famous. And as we all know, Paul Schrader is one of the biggest Swifties around.

Never afraid to post his musings on Facebook, the filmmaker posted a photo of her self-titled, debut album cover when she was just 16 and wondered how this girl, then just someone named Taylor Swift, became “Taylor Swift,” i.e. the biggest star on the planet in our year 2024.

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“This girl became Taylor Swift. There’s a movie there,” Schrader wrote. “What’s the best article written about the TS phenomenon?”

You’d be shocked to know that discussing Swift on the internet can be a recipe for disaster, and not long after he wrote the post asking for a deep dive article that really explains why she’s a superstar (may we suggest this recent WSJ feature about Swift’s publicist Tree Paine?), what he got instead was a bunch of people saying how much they love or (gasp!) loathe her.

“FB can be stupid (no surprise there),” Schrader said. “I asked if there was an article which best explained this phenomenon and in return I got “I like her” “I hate her” responses (and some old guy jabs). I’ve stayed on FB because sometimes it initiates interesting discourse. I guess TS transcends even that.”

Schrader is not the only one likely asking the question “Taylor Biopic WHEN?!?” but despite almost two decades of hits, ups and downs, and being one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, it’s clear Swift is right now at the peak of her powers, still riding high on The Eras Tour internationally that’s shaping up to be the most lucrative concert tour ever, not to mention her sprawling double album that just released, “The Tortured Poets Department.” That album, her 11th, was streamed more than 1 billion times on Spotify in its first five days of release, an all-time record.

Schrader meanwhile is gearing up to premiere his latest film, “Oh, Canada” starring Jacob Elordi, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival next month. He’s also working on a screenplay in which he said he’s in his “post-dying” era and that the film is about a “sexual obsessor.” We’re guessing it’s not a film about Joe or Matty.

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