From “Burton to this Taylor” to a “James Dean daydream,” Taylor Swift has always had an eye cast toward Hollywood — and that’s not even counting her various forays into the movie industry, from rather forgettable (The Giver) to terribly bad (Cats) to very good (Miss Americana) and industry-shifting (Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour). So it’s fitting that Swift is rolling out her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, with another theatrical play — The Official Release Party of a Showgirl companion movie that’s expected to win the box office this weekend ahead of Leonardo DiCaprio and Dwayne Johnson (more on him in a bit). But Swift’s new album also features one of her most industry-focused tracks yet (“Elizabeth Taylor,” which name-drops not just the screen legend but also Musso & Frank’s) and another song that directly references someone’s interest in both winning an Oscar and the Palme d’Or (“Wi$h Li$t”).
I’m Katey Rich, and to celebrate the release of Swift’s new album, I hopped on Substack Live over at Prestige Junkie After Party this morning with Ankler Media deputy editor Christopher Rosen and the great Hunter Harris — whose Substack, Hung Up, is an indispensable read on celebrity and culture — to discuss Taylor Alison’s place in the Hollywood firmament and her future aspirations as a filmmaker. (Not a paid After Party subscriber? Fix that here!)
“I don’t doubt her commitment and interest in cinema and movie-making. And I also think that she is one of the more hyper-capable people working right now,” Hunter told us. “But it really is just a question of when, because truly she just served a two-year life sentence on the Eras Tour, and now is about to do another — she has to tour this album too eventually, and then plan a wedding.”
To Hunter’s point: It was three years ago when Searchlight Pictures announced it had acquired the rights to Swift’s forthcoming feature directorial debut. And while Swift clearly hasn’t stayed out of movie theaters — the Eras Tour movie grossed more than $267 million worldwide in 2023, and Release Party could earn as much as $40 million by Sunday — there has been little public progress on the narrative project in the years since.
However, even if the feature doesn’t happen, Swift has other onscreen options. “Her persona is so big that it just feels very vulnerable for her to work with an auteur right now,” Hunter told us, noting that when Swift does appear as an actor in subpar projects like Valentine’s Day or Amsterdam, the roles don’t allow her an opportunity to stretch. “I love the idea of her being in a movie like a Paul Thomas Anderson ensemble or something like that.”
Considering Chris and I are obsessed with Swift’s various attempts at movie awards attention, our conversation with Hunter also shifted into the Oscar space. Swift has tried — and failed — to land an Oscar nomination both as a songwriter (“Only the Young” from Miss Americana, “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing) and as a filmmaker (“All Too Well: The Short Film” was eligible for consideration but was snubbed).
“I don’t think best original song would be too much of a stretch,” Hunter said of Swift’s possible (inevitable?) eventual Oscar validation. As Hunter pointed out, if and when it does happen, it would create an environment for Swift to campaign, which is sometimes a challenge for outrageously successful stars, like Johnson, a best actor contender this year for The Smashing Machine.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, I’m not The Rock. I’ve always been Dwayne. I’m so vulnerable, actually.’ And it’s like, didn’t you actually log on to Twitter two years ago to complain that people were underreporting the Black Adam grosses or something?” Hunter said of Johnson’s early awards strategy for the A24 drama. “That campaign stuff, like, ‘Oh, woe is me. I’m just a tortured artist,’ it only works up to a certain point. I don’t know how much of that from a performance place could really work for Taylor Swift.”
Watch a replay above of our lively conversation, where we get into The Life of a Showgirl, our relationship with Swift’s lyrics (Hunter thinks she’d be a fantastic screenwriter, too, for what it’s worth) and her “actually romantic” feud with Charli XCX. That petty scrape offers an interesting juxtaposition to Swift’s Hollywood push, since Charli is set to appear in multiple films over the next several months (including the A24 movie The Moment, which she’ll also produce) and could land a best original song nomination before Swift (Charli wrote tracks for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights). Wouldn’t that be a Hollywood ending?
