My inbox has gotten busy with invitations in the past week or so, and if you’re a voter in a guild or critics’ group or an Academy member, I’m betting you’re in the same boat.
Screenings, receptions and Q&As are cropping up all over New York, Los Angeles and beyond, with what feels like an extra concentration in L.A. in the days before the Governors Awards on Nov. 15. It’s not quite the last sprint of awards season — that’s coming in early January, brace yourselves! — but with many critics’ groups and the Golden Globes announcing nominees in early December, it’s the last opportunity to be top of mind for those voters, at least.
I’ll be in L.A. next week soaking in as much as I can — if you have an event, invite me! — but in New York, one of the biggest stars of the season is already hard at work. We knew when she performed at the Academy Museum Gala that Taylor Swift was really in it to win it with her Toy Story 5 song, “I Knew It, I Knew You.” But doing a Q&A the Sunday morning after Halloween — and sticking around to meet every single attendee? That’s an extra level of commitment.
I’ll hand it over to my colleague Christopher Rosen, who was at Sunday’s special FYC screening with his daughter to witness Swift win over a crowd very different from her usual sold-out stadium shows.
Taylor’s Version
“This is wonderful of you to just rise from the candy hangover, bringing children,” Swift said following yesterday’s screening of Toy Story 5 at Disney’s New York City headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
Truthfully, I expected more kids to be there — my daughter, 8, was one of a handful in the crowd, which was filled with a mix of guild members and Critics Choice voters, all of whom braved the end of daylight saving time and the New York City marathon to catch a glimpse of Swift.
But they didn’t just get to hear Swift and Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton spend 30 minutes talking about “I Knew It, I Knew You” and her personal history with the Toy Story franchise (surprise, she’s a big fan). No, Swift was down to meet every single person who showed up, more than 200. Swift didn’t just politely shake hands and pose for photos — all taken by her longtime publicist, Tree Paine, who also helped people with their coats and bags. She engaged. Everyone had ample time to chat with Swift and Stanton. She signed autographs, took selfies, the works. The post-screening Q&A ended at 12:17 p.m.; my daughter and I didn’t get to the stage to talk with her until 1:31 p.m., and dozens of people were waiting behind us. She got to all of them, too.
It’s easy to brush off that kind of retail politics when it comes to awards campaigning. We like to think this is a meritocracy, or maybe that it’s really all about the work. And it is.
Mostly.
What I mean is that Swift wouldn’t be in contention for her first Oscar nomination if she didn’t have the goods. So it matters that Toy Story 5 is legitimately great — way better than Toy Story 4, which won an Oscar; sorry, Forky! — and “I Knew It, I Knew You” is easily the best song Swift has ever done for a movie.
But forging a connection with voters is just as important. I’m old enough to remember an anonymous Oscar voter telling The Hollywood Reporter he was torn between voting for Oppenheimer star Robert Downey Jr. or Poor Things contender Mark Ruffalo for best supporting actor during the 2024 Oscar race. What “tipped the scales,” this person said, was an IRL interaction with Downey. “Campaigning matters!” the voter said.
Downey, of course, won the Oscar.
During the Q&A, Swift and Stanton talked about how Swift got involved with the film — a story as old as the original Toy Story 5 press tour back in July. In brief, Stanton wanted Swift to contribute a song; she wasn’t sure she’d have time, given her commitments to the Eras tour. But after screening the movie, Swift was so creatively moved that she rushed home and wrote “I Knew It, I Knew You” in mere hours. The process happened so, well, swiftly that Stanton said he even assumed Swift had relabeled some other track to fit the assignment. (She hadn’t.)
As Stanton told it on Sunday, he was fighting off sleep that same day Swift screened the film when his FaceTime lit up late that evening. It was former Disney boss Bob Iger, standing there with Swift. “The song’s amazing, Andrew,” Iger told him.
Swift discussed her love of the Toy Story franchise and the Jessie character, first introduced in Toy Story 2 and taking a central role in Toy Story 5. She talked about the artistry that went into co-writing the song with “one of my best friends,” Jack Antonoff, a fellow Toy Story devotee who worships Randy Newman — the composer and Oscar winner and nominee for every other Toy Story song, including “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Swift and Antonoff paid tribute to Newman in a variety of ways, including reaching for chords that are different from what Swift would typically attempt. “Jack and I knew how to stretch what we would normally do in reverence to our fandom, to the maestro who created this whole thing. He built this beautiful pool we get to splash in. We ended up writing it so quickly, and we’re both so proud of it.”
But what stood out to me, at least before Swift took the time to really talk to my daughter — like, get down on a knee to speak with her, eye to eye — was how Swift discussed artists beyond Newman, even ones she didn’t even know.
Stanton had approached her to write what would become “I Knew It, I Knew You” months before Swift finally saw the movie and agreed to join the project. In that time, she said she wouldn’t have been surprised if Pixar had gone to someone else as a backup plan.
“I was repeatedly asking, ‘Be honest, did you guys replace me?’” Swift said, adding she didn’t want to kick someone off the project who was approached after her delay in being able to commit. “I’m not in the business of doing that,” she added.
To get an Oscar nomination, Swift has to convince members of the Academy’s music branch that she’s one of them — a working songwriter and musician, not an A-list interloper trying to force her way into their club. Anecdotes like that one, which showed off her humility and her respect for fellow songwriters, will go a long way toward proving that point.
The selfies don’t hurt either.
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