Taylor Swift Would Switch Places with Guillermo Del Toro for a Day: ‘Imagine Having that Imagination’

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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To Taylor Swift, Guillermo del Toro is the real “Mastermind.”

The multi-hyphenate Grammy darling raved about the “Shape of Water” Oscar-winning filmmaker during The Hollywood Reporter’s 2022 Women in Entertainment Power 100 Q&A, revealing she would want to trade places with del Toro for a day.

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“Imagine having that imagination, that visual vocabulary and that astonishing body of work,” Swift said. “To have such a diverse storytelling range but somehow put your distinctive artistic fingerprint on every film.”

The “Cats” actress most recently appeared in David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam,” while del Toro’s stop-motion reimagining of “Pinocchio” is now streaming on Netflix. Swift also made her directorial debut this year with the Oscar-qualifying short film “All Too Well.”

Swift’s latest album “Midnights” took inspiration from shows like “Mad Men,” with actress-singer Zoë Kravitz co-writing two tracks. The “Red” crooner admitted earlier this year that she botched her audition for Academy Award-winning 2012 musical adaptation “Les Misérables” opposite Eddie Redmayne.

“Basically I was up for two roles,” Swift said during “The Graham Norton Show.” “I had the look of Cosette and the range vocally of Éponine, so it was established I was there for a good time but not for a long time. I wasn’t going to get the role.”

She added, “When I got there they put me in full 19th-century street urchin costume and told me they were going to paint my teeth brown and I was like, ‘You are going to do that after I meet Eddie Redmayne right?’ They made me look like death and it became a nightmare. When I met Eddie, I didn’t open my mouth to speak!”

Director Tom Hooper said in 2019 that while Swift had “rather brilliantly auditioned” for the role of Éponine, he ultimately couldn’t cast the “Love Story” singer because there was disbelief that Swift “was a girl people would overlook.” Similarly, Swift was also turned down for a role as an extra in “Twilight: New Moon.”

“It didn’t quite feel right for her for the most flattering reason,” Hooper told Vulture at the time. “I didn’t cast her, but I got very close to it.” Newcomer Samantha Barks was cast in the role that Swift — along with “Funny Girl” Broadway star Lea Michele, Evan Rachel Wood, and Scarlett Johansson — had auditioned for.

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