In the news that every Swifty and Twihard never knew they needed, the director of Twilight: New Moon has revealed he was forced to turn down Taylor Swift for a part in the film.
For the uninitiated, Swifties and Twihards are the self-proclaimed collective nouns for Taylor Swift and Twilight fans respectively, and both tribes take their fandoms pretty seriously (understatement of the century) so you can imagine the fanfare if the I Knew You Were Trouble singer were to pop up unexpectedly in Forks, Washington, where the Twilight films and books are set.
Director Chris Weitz, who took the reigns for the second film in the franchise, has recently spoken about how Taylor had asked their mutual agent for an extra role in the film, but that he’d had to politely decline.
‘Taylor Swift was a huge Twihard, and Taylor Swift and I had the same agent at the time and he said, “Taylor would like to be in this movie – not because of you, but she's a Twihard!”’ he said on the Twilight Effect podcast. ‘She would be someone at the cafeteria, or the diner or whatever, but she just want[ed] to be in this movie.’
Weitz made the decision to turn her down over fears an appearance, however brief, would distract from the narrative and added, ‘The hardest thing for me was to be like, the moment that Taylor Swift walks onto the screen, for about five minutes, nobody is going to be able to process anything.
‘I kick myself for it too, because – I was like, wow, I could've been hanging out with Taylor Swift.’
As Swifties or anyone with a TV will know, Taylor has a number of both big and small screen credits under her belt. In 2019, she took on the lead role as Bombalurina in the much-maligned live-action remake of Cats, and has smaller credits on Valentine’s Day (2010), The Lorax (2012) and The Giver (2014).