EVERY Taylor Swift Interview | Eras Marathon | The Graham Norton Show

Taylor Swift, congratulations. That single's out now, off the album, which is out now. Yeah. Which contains, with interest, 16 brand new songs, I noticed. Oh, it says on the sticker on the front of it. It says right there, I'm no fool. No, and congratulations to you on The Brits this week. Oh yeah, that was fun. Yeah, great performance. Thank you! No, really, didn't you? Did you watch it? I loved it. Really good. She put on a show. Look, who's she? She's in that dress, do you see? We won't mention her dandruff. And then, in a coup de tiens, that went into this. Tearaway. Yeah. Two outfits on top of each other. No, but that's quite hard to put the white outfit on top of the black outfit. It's hard. It's very hard. And then just, in a minute. And now, a bit like Thirteen, she's off to the Oscars, she doesn't get her Oscar. But by the way, can I say that in Hannah, like, I literally wanted to learn how to fight after I saw that movie. I'll teach you if you want. Yes! Girl on girl action! It was so good. Good, I'm glad you liked it. And you carried that whole movie. It was like, just you in so much of the movie. Aw, fantastic. Thanks. Yeah. It's a bit of a love-in. You should have always sat beside me. Because Taylor and Richard, you met at the Golden Globes. Yeah. We did, we actually sat next to each other. Aw. How nice. It was very nice. Yeah. She said, why are you here? It's okay. And I have, I have, it's just the last time, so you just... Actually, I'm nominated. Oh, really? For what? Best actor in a movie. Yeah, no, that was, I really put my foot in my mouth in that one. And then, you know, but then I was absolutely freaked out because I met your wife, Carrie, who... And I said, it's so good to see you again. And she's like, in her head, I know she's going, never met this girl before. But it's because she was, like, my favorite assistant district attorney on Law & Order. And so I literally see her every week. She doesn't know it. It was a good night for me. I was really on. But when I was your son there, or was he just very happy to hear about you meeting Taylor? Neither. What are you talking about? Wait a minute. No, he wasn't there, but of course, he was very impressed that I met her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course he was. Nice. Of course. You just, people get around Richard Gere, they start making mistakes and, like, stuttering. They get nervous. It happens. No, he makes you do it, though. He makes you, he looks at you, like, what are you talking about? Now, very welcome, very welcome, John and Taylor, you've been on before. Now, Kev, now, is it Kev, Kev KP? KP's fine. I've been called a lot worse. As long as you call me Kevin, I'm happy. KP, I'm happy. So here's the thing, here's the thing. Obviously, we're very happy that Kev KP is here. But I have to, I did a bit of genning up on the cricket. Now, Taylor, you've spent, I think, have I seen pictures of you at football matches? No. Have you been to a cricket match? No. But, ooh, but I went to Lord's today, Lord's Place, the place where you play cricket. I went to it. Now, if you Google cricket, it brings up the home of cricket is Lord's. So she walked through the door, Taylor walked through the door, and she mentioned, oh, cricket, of course I know who you are. No, you don't. You don't, and you don't know what cricket is. Yes, I do. You wrote a book, and you played the cricket, and you... People love hearing him playing the cricket. It's a very long game, it's a very long game. Yeah, it takes days. It's impossible to explain to Americans that you can have an international match, where England are playing India or Australia, and it goes on for five days, and after the end of the fifth day, it can still be a draw. I know what cricket is, I know it's, like, relatively violent, and... You know what I'm saying? Like, there was this episode of Friends where Ross is dating an English girl, and she, her friends, her mates... This happened. Her mates get into a cricket match, and he tries to play, and he just, like, breaks all the bones in his body. It's wild. I think, wasn't that rugby? Cricket or rugby? Wasn't that rugby? That was rugby. Taylor's mother, she's a worrier, your mother. That's, yes, that's putting it very lightly. Is she a worst-case scenario person? Yeah, we call her worst-case scenario Andrea. Or central intelligence Andrea. Oh, because she knows everything? Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. So she Googles everything, she somehow navigates her way through the internet. Can't figure out how to work a phone, but she could have all of your background information and fingerprints in five minutes. So she was the one who Googled cricket and messaged you and said, Lord, the cricket. So you're going to blame your mum. You're going to get off here and you're going to blame your mum. I did that on my own, surprisingly. See, my mum's still alive, so I still have to answer to whatever I say about her. But she's worried for you, doesn't she? It's not about her. She thinks terrible things are going to happen to you. Everything terrible is going to happen to me. Because they invent things that you couldn't even believe happen. She walks into my apartment and, God, a lot of candles burning in here. Lots of candles. And you think she's going to go to the fire hazard. You think she's going to say, I'm going to burn the place down. Yeah. But she takes a very, very quick right turn to, you know, I saw this programme on the news that most people are getting lung cancer from candles these days. Excellent mother. Taylor and John, the love of the cats. Now, you have two, Taylor? Yeah, I have two. Two. I like the cat. Can we see those pictures again, possibly? Because I asked Taylor what kind of cats they were and you said they were what? Well, I only have two. He showed a picture of, like, 17 cats. Yeah. That's in your future. Here comes Taylor, crazy cat lady. That's a few years down the road. But this is Olivia. How did it have the accident? What? What accident? Is that a proper cat? Is it damaged irreparably? It's the weirdest cat I've ever seen in my life. John Cleese, you cannot say that is the weirdest cat you've ever seen in your life. Here's a picture of John Cleese's cat. Look at that! My wife, she's not a cat. It's a monster. It's a panther. That is not climbing your curtains. It's an American breed. And the reason it's not here tonight is it didn't want to come. Taylor Swift, you are back with your new album. Fifth album, right? Oh, yeah, it is. Yeah. And this is not a twang, ladies and gentlemen, not a twang on it. This is pop, pop, pop, isn't it? I mean, you can do that more than you want. And the other thing is it's a Taylor Swift album because we worried for you. Because it seemed like you had to go through such awful things to create your albums. And now this is an album with no heartbreak. There's no kind of songs to lovers. It's kind of, it's very upbeat and positive. Well, I mean, it's definitely got, it still has emotional complexity to it, which is the most important thing. But it's not about, like, devastation, pining away, like, rocking back and forth in a corner, sobbing. It's definitely much more about kind of the last two years of my life, which have been about moving to New York, surrounding myself with my friends, figuring out who I am, independence, freedom, all of those things. And when I am reflecting back on a romantic relationship, it's mostly just looking back on the things I learned from it, rather than you did this, it made me feel like this, which used to be the formula. So, are you a single lady at the moment? Yes. So, now, I always think this is interesting. Because you're Taylor Swift. Can somebody ask you out? Yeah, I mean, they can. Theoretically. And you also go, what the earth are you doing? No, it's not like that. It's just that my life is really, really busy and really complicated, and it becomes kind of too chaotic when I involve someone else in it. And that's just something I've observed over time. If you give people one thing to talk about, they multiply it by 50, and they make all these sensationalised stories up about you. If you give people zero to talk about, anything multiplied by zero is still zero. You're on it. Yeah. It's just math. What I like is the new single, which is a huge hit everywhere, Shake It Off, is that kind of philosophy of not getting bogged down in all that stuff. Yeah. It's a lot easier to deal with this whole chaotic thing, where people are allowed to say whatever they want about you and call a newspaper and that it's a national news story. It's a lot easier to handle that with a sense of humour. And with Shake It Off, in hearing from my fans online, it's not just me who deals with gossip. It's not just me who deals with how human beings treat each other on a day-to-day basis. It's happening to everyone, everywhere. So I figured, why not make a song that is about dealing with that, letting go of it, and comes from a place of strength, and also makes people want to dance? Yeah. Shake It Off. Yeah, just... Shake It Off. Yeah, exactly. See, I think, KP, you need this in your life. Shake It Off. Andy Flower, Shake It Off. Matt Pryor, Shake It Off. Fake Twitter, Shake It Off. You don't need a book, but you could shake it off. I have now. The chapter closes. The book is Shake It Off. That's it, that's a Shake It Off, that's my Shake It Off. Shake It Off. Alimony, shake... Well, no, you can't shake off Alimony. That's always with us. 20 million. Which suggests you had a lot. It's only that. That's 50%, remember? Yes. When you go through it, it's 50%. Theoretically. You guys are like, why don't you date? LAUGHTER You have a new album, 1989. That presumably means there's going to be another tour. Yeah, there will be another tour. I'm really excited. CHEERING Presumably, it'll be a global festival of Taylor Swift. That's what we should call it. Festival of Taylor Swift, the Taylor Swift Festival. Didn't you invite a load of people to your house? Fans to your house? I heard that on the radio yesterday or the day before, but I didn't know whether it was fiction or not. No, that's true. But how do you select them? How do you get people to come round your gaff? Well, basically, I got this idea before I finished the album, and I wanted to call it the 1989 Secret Sessions, because I knew before I finished the album that I was most proud of this album, more than anything I'd done before, and so I wanted to give fans a chance to hear it before it came out, like a month before it came out. And I'd never done this before, but I wanted it to be all fans who had never met me before and had been like, I've been to seven shows, I've never met you, I camped out on the street, I waited outside, I never saw you, whatever. Like, I wanted it to be these people who have been so dedicated, but I've never gotten to thank them in person. We didn't get an invite, Jon? No. Maybe next time. Next time. But I just think, Taylor, you know, not to sound like worst-case scenario Andrea, but it sounds like a terrible idea. The worst. The worst idea. Was it all right? Well, so... Never doing it again. The word you're looking for is no. Actually... No, you had fun, you liked it. I found them on the internet. Tinder. What are you talking about now? I would go online, I would look at their Instagram pages or their Tumblr or their Twitter or whatever, and just kind of watch them for months and months. No, no, no. Just sort of like... This is weird! A stalker! And then I invited them over and... They came. And they came, and there have been, like... We've had them at every one of my houses and... When did you first start having these feelings? I have to say, this is sweet, right? So the fans, because the fans who go to do it, they then, of course, want to blog about it, because they've had this amazing experience. But when they blog about it, it's borderline confusing on whether they had a good time or not. So here are some of the blog things. So we were asked to go to the living room, sit down, not know how much I was sweating during that moment. I was like, the **** is going to happen? My poor heart could not keep up, then all of a sudden she just popped up out of nowhere, she appeared out of thin air like David Copperfield, and we all died, like, for real. So she says she'll be playing her album for us. Let me tell you, the noise that came out of my mouth was not human. I legit almost told Mama Swift to call me an ambulance, because I wasn't going to make it. So much because they always talk about dying. Dying, yeah. I died. They're like, rest in peace, me, RIP, me. I died dead. We took a little break, we took a little break, and she was passing around Rice Krispie treats and cookies, and I was talking to her mum for a little, and then I walked back in, and she was like, hey, babe, thanks for coming, do you want a treat? And I was like, I would, but I think I'm dead. Oh, this is brilliant. Mid-sentence, she stopped talking and pointed to Amanda and said, Amanda, I'm so glad you're here. Amanda died right there. Finally, guys, just wait for the one she did with Imogen Heap, because damn, that one slayed everyone to heaven and back. While listening to the song, I literally had to plan my funeral arrangements. You've been at, I think, the poshest sing-along I've ever seen. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, I do, yeah. Music posh. Yeah, we've got a picture of the three of you. Jon Bon Jovi, you and Prince William. Yeah, it was insane. And I was very nervous for the whole thing, because it was at Kensington Palace, and it was my first kind of royal encounter of sorts. And it was... Jon Bon Jovi was on stage, and he was singing... He was about to sing Living On A Prayer, and he kind of pointed to Prince William and said something like, I hear you like to do this at karaoke night, karaoke boy. Wow. I was like, future King of England, karaoke boy. Just processing all of this. He starts the song, and Prince William looks over at me and says, like, I don't remember it now. Like, it's all gone now. Like, I don't remember the song now. Like, kind of freaking out a little bit. And he just looks at me and he's like, you've got to go with me. Like, you've got to go with me. And I was like, OK, I don't know. So we went up there, and we sang along to Living On A Prayer, and, like, I died. A picture... A picture of Prince William, and he is so fangirling. Prince William in this picture, look at it. Died. One is literally dying. One is planning one state funeral. Thank you very much for Taylor Swift. Thank you very much. That is Me, which is out now. It's got an exclamation point. He really had to add that. Yeah, you know, it's important. That's part of it. But this promises a new album. Yeah. Yeah, it's on the... Do we know when it's on the way? We do. OK. We don't. No. But I'm really flattered that you would be curious. Well, people are curious. Like, they don't know what the album's called, and that's annoying them. Yeah. But then you tease your fans. So have some fans figured out what the album's called? Oh, definitely. Definitely. And that's because when I was making the first music video, I was just, like, putting all kinds of references to unreleased music in the music video. So I'm sort of... It's definitely my fault that there are a lot of theories about it because I put a lot of clues in the video, and so some fans have definitely guessed it, because they're very smart. So this song, Me, and, you know, the bright colours and all that, is that a kind of... Is that a foreshadowing of what the album's going to be like? Mm-hm, yeah. We're not going to put out, like... She said you used it like it was a foreshadowing. Like a foreshadowing. Is it a foreshadowing? No, so it's a bright, happy album. Yeah, it definitely is. It's... Yeah, I'm in a much better mood. LAUGHTER And also, so you're in a good... You're back to doing interviews. You haven't done an interview in this country for ages. I haven't done an interview really before a couple... Like, two weeks ago, for three years. I was doing a thing. Was that a nice thing, not to do interviews? I mean... I shouldn't talk myself out of a job. We all go, Oh, life without interviews would be so much better. Korea's doing great. I've not done an interview. Yeah, everyone's like... They're like, we haven't slept in 36 hours. Yeah, we wish our career held up as well as yours if we didn't do interviews. I mean, you know, I was doing a thing. I came up with a rhyme for it. Like, the album was called Reputation, so I came up with a rhyme, which was, there will be no explanation, there will just be reputation. I was like, it rhymes, got to stick to it. So I did. I'm really happy to see you again. No, we're so happy to see you. And also, the thing is, you seem like one of those people who's good at this bit. Like, you like chatting, you're, you know, so... Thank you. Yeah, so it's kind of... Don't go hiding. Mind you, having said that, interviews don't always go well. Tell us about the interview with The Rolling Stone magazine. Oh. So that was... It was kind of a weird all-day interview? Yeah, so when Rolling Stone does a cover story, it's like, they hang out. You know, you hang out with this journalist for a couple days, and you just hang out. If you drive around, they're sitting there. If you go to lunch, we hang. It's like a thing. And it was a huge deal for me to have a cover of Rolling Stone. It still is. Like, for me, that's like... It's a big angel-singing moment. And so, of course, I was just like, be your best self today. If you're going to drive, you drive the best you've driven. And also, you're like, how do I be real and not be pretending to be real? Like, when I'm clearly... I know this is a journalist. But through all that, I was just like, OK, so I'm going to take him on a day that I... It's this journalist named Brian Hyatt who's the coolest. And, like, take him on a day. I'm going to rehearsals. It's normal. And I'm just going to drive him, because that's what I normally do. Be your best self at driving. And I got in two car accidents... LAUGHTER ..with him in the car. One was my fault, one was not. One was an I'm sorry, the second one was a you're welcome, I saved your life. We got sideswiped. But I was like... I was fully panicking, and when we got sideswiped, I think he screamed out something like, I have a new baby at home! LAUGHTER And I was like, this is not going to be a good cover story for me. Like, this is going to be good for people reading it, but not for me. He nearly killed me in a Mustang once, and I was thinking the same thing, I've got a baby at home. Yeah, I think it might be your first thought. I'm like, I have three cats! It's not the same. You will be in Cats the movie. The full Cats movie, it's my dream. No, really, I mean, it does sound... There's nothing I could want more than this. This does seem like your dream job. Yeah. So, which cat are you giving us? I'm a cat named Bombalurina, which is a very common name. Oh, yes. So, Bombalurina, she's the... She's quite a friendly cat. She's like a manipulative sociopath cat, so if that's your version of friendly, if that's what you find to be endearing, then yes. OK. I mean, it's an amazing cast. It's Idris Elba, it's yourself... Judy Dench, Ian McKellen, lots of Sirs. Yeah, Rebel Wilson is in it. Yeah, Sir Rebel Wilson. LAUGHTER Is it Jason Derulo in it? Yes, Jason Derulo's in it, and he's phenomenal. Dude, his English accent? Better than mine. You have to do an English accent? Yeah. Can you do some? No. OK. LAUGHTER Now, because we've read about this thing. So, cat school, was cat school a real thing? OK, so, I'm sure you guys are... We've got drama school people here, I'm sure. Yeah. You know the... Animal behaviour class. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we did that. Where you crawl around as a cat. We called it cat school, cos I think they thought that's cuter. But, like, basically, I'd go in every day and crawl around on the floor and learn about cats and watch videos of cats. So, basically, like, my normal day. But, yeah, like, they're like... You study their bodies, you study their instincts. And I was only supposed to come in for, like, three days of cat school, and I was there for four months. LAUGHTER I don't know if it's going to be any good, but I have more fun than anyone else, that's guaranteed. Because, obviously, you have cats. So, is it Olivia Benson, who is... She's... I mean, she must be jealous that you're in the movie about cats, not her. She seems... She likes to pose for the camera. Yeah, so, my second cat, my middle cat, Detective Olivia Benson, is... ..is a really photogenic cat. No, she is. I mean, check this out. Really special. How long has she been in the porn industry? She was doing... It's like a yoga. She was just doing that for a long time. But I love the face, kind of like, and... LAUGHTER And so... With her leg over her head. That was amazing. Thank you. I loved that. Any time you want to see it, I'll let you know. And, listen, before we go, I've just got to remind people, cos I think this is an amazing statistic. You know, you've got this new album coming out. Taylor Swift has done something only the Beatles have done. So, no other, kind of, single performer has done this. I don't know what it is. No other woman has done it. You've had an album at number one for six weeks for four consecutive albums. Wow! Wow! Like, that's an amazing thing. Only the Beatles have done it. So, hopefully... Hopefully this album will repeat that success. We can't wait for it to come out. And thank you so much for that performance. Taylor Swift, everyone! CHEERING Taylor and Bono, have you worked together? No? Not yet. We're going to talk about it later. OK. OK. But, no, Bono, you did a very nice thing when Taylor got to Ireland. I mean, I'm a Swifty. Oh, yeah! I'm a Swifty. You know, we're... We're highly aerial birds, you know? And, over the years, we've come... You know, we've bumped into each other and made friends. He doesn't want to take credit for the fact that he's so nice. He sent me roses when I played in Dublin. He doesn't want to take credit for doing a live gig. He's a truly great person. You sent him that picture. There you are. Apple, just the best there is. I'd better have a drink. Here's the thing. So, Bono and Taylor not worked together, but, weirdly, Taylor and Eddie, you have worked together. We have. Oh, wow, yeah. It was a decade ago. I once died in his arms in a screen test for Les Mis. Oh, wow. I did not know this. I did not know this. There's a lot that people don't know about this story. Basically, I was auditioning for two roles in Les Mis, and I'd done a few auditions and gone to New York and whatever, and I think it had been established that I had more of a look of Cosette, but I had the range vocally of Eponine, so it was established that, like, I was there for a good time, not a long time. I wasn't going to get this role. But they were like, you know, do you want to come to London for one last screen test and you'll get to screen test with Eddie Redmayne? I'm like, this seems like an experience I want to have in my life. You're, like, one of my favourite actors. You're so ridiculously talented. And I was like, so, yeah, I'll go to London. Yes, indeed. I get there and they're like, OK, so we really want to make you look like Eponine, we're going to try to do... You know, she wasn't, like, loaded, she had brown teeth, you know, like, she didn't have a lot of money, so... A 19th-century street urchin. Yeah, exactly, I'm trying to say it in a way that makes sense. She didn't floss. Exactly. They were like, we're actually going to paint your teeth brown for this. And I'm like, so you're going to do that after I meet Eddie Redmayne, right? That's not something you do before. I get to meet people and then you do the brown teeth. I'm like, no, no, it's... This is just... Everybody's going to meet you with the brown teeth and we're going to do, like, big circles under your eyes, like you're near death. I was like, this has immediately become a nightmare for me. And so then, you know, you were so nice, but I think when I met you, I was like, I don't know if I'm ready. It's hilarious. You know, as you walked in as a 19th-century French street urchin, and I was not expecting that, but my overwhelming memory of it, Taylor, was I had... I'd just been to Pizza Express beforehand and I'd had some garlic dough balls. Oh, God, oh, God. We thought we were going to be singing off of each other, but they had us. Also, it was so weird cos Taylor was dressed fully as Ethanine and I was, like, in my tracksuit. And they had us on the floor, like, singing Sweet Nothings into each other, and all I knew is I'd just had garlic bread. And I had brown teeth. It was one of these, it was like trying to show emotion while at the same time not to punish you. You were weeping and I just thought it was because of how I looked. I just felt so bad, like, I have to be close to her right now. This is... Oh, this was not the method, no? No. It's nice to hear we were both struggling in that moment. It was a beautiful audition. And, Alex, I feel bad because you nearly met Taylor once before. Nearly. On Strictly Come Dancing, I got all the way to the quarterfinal, got booted out at that stage, obviously devastated, but when they told me the news, oh, next week's music act is Taylor Swift, I was like, seriously? I just need one more week. You let me come back the following week. You finally did it. I was absolutely... But now here we are. Yeah! I love this. This is an early, very early gig. This must be at school, is it? Oh, wow. Who I love in this... Who's absolutely loving this early U2 gig is this woman here. Look at her. She is living her best life. Look at her. Wow. Wow, that is... Ed just got the hair brushed forward, getting a bit cool. Yeah. But, you know, everyone starts somewhere. We've got a very early gig of Taylor. This is you. Now, you haven't sold out. Oh, yeah. But Ed, you remember this? Yeah. This was a big deal for me. I was 14. And it was an event called the Nashville Rubber Duck Race. And it is exactly as it sounds. They would put rubber ducks in the river and see who won. And I was the official entertainment. As you can see, the banner is incredibly high concept. It just says it like it is, you know, like this is her name. Did you play before the race or after the race? Oh, you know what, that's a really good question. I think I blocked a lot of this out. Okay, fair enough. I won't dwell. It might be triggering. That was the whole crowd. The whole crowd is in the shop. I can see three people back there. They do look like fans of rubber duck racing. My friends are so jealous that I'm getting to meet you because we just look at you as such an inspiration, like breaking through in such a male-dominated industry. You should be so proud of yourself. The US national team, when they've won and you've brought them out on stage. And we see that over here and we're like, that is it. How incredible is that? So we know you've always been behind supporting other women and leading the way, so thank you. That's amazing. All right, so you've been there, the midnights, the sleepless nights, 13 sleepless nights. And what sort of time span are the sleepless nights taken from in your life? Throughout my life, I think probably after I was a teenager. I think that there's such intensity when you're up late at night. It's a concept album and the main question is what keeps you up at night? So you could be up at night because you're reeling from just having met someone and you're falling for them or you could be plotting revenge. You could be... Garlic bread. Yeah, you could be thinking about the time that they painted your teeth brown to mean that you were in pain. You could be thinking about what could have been. There's just so many possibilities. If you think of that as a creative writing prompt, which is what I did, that's where the album came from. And this album couldn't have only... I mean, amazing reviews, you broke streaming records and a lot of the rave reviews have asked the question, and it is a question, that the great songwriting on this album is part of it due to the fact that you've been doing this sort of strange work of re-recording your back catalogue. So it was like you were doing homework on songwriting. I think so. I really do. So I've been re-recording my first six albums because there was a thing that happened where I had wanted to own my work of my first six albums when I changed record labels. My first six albums were actually sold away from me. And so I decided to just... I just figured if I made them the first time, I can make them again. I love it. I love it. But tell me this, is it working? Are radio stations playing the Taylor version? Yes, there's actually... One of the things I was most thankful for was there's a company of many stations in America called iHeart, and they have sworn to only play my new versions, and they've said that they'll switch it out for the old versions every time I put out a new version of a song, which is just, like... It's so heartwarming to me because this is something that I care about, but I don't expect other people to care about it. It's something that's very personal to me, and it's a lot of work, but it's, like... It's really fun and rewarding for me, and I can't believe people have actually gotten behind it the way they have. And doing this, you know, going back over your old work, has led to this wonderful thing where... So, All Too Well is now... I know. It's now... Yes. So, it was a short song, then it was a longer song, and now it's a short song. Okay, how do I shorten this? So, basically, All Too Well was a song that came out originally on an album called Red, which came out in 2012. I always loved this song. It was never a single, but the fans really loved this song, and I had made the mistake of saying in an interview the truth, which is that it had started out as a ten-minute song with, like, six or seven extra verses, and we had had to cut it down to the sort of four-and-a-half, five-minute length that it ended up. My fans would not let it go. They were like... I'd be doing an interview for something else, albums later, and they'd be like, where's the ten-minute version? Where is it? So, basically, for the rerecord, I was like, I am going to put out the ten-minute version. I'm just gonna show them what it was. And you know what? I really want to make... I want to tell a story that goes along with it visually, that's more than a music video. I want to... I'd been directing my music videos for a while at this point, and writing and directing them was really fun for me. I just love it. It's a very natural extension of my storytelling, so I thought, I want to make a short film and really do this song justice and also create a short film that stands on its own. So I was very lucky to be able to cast Sadie Sink and Dylan O'Brien to be these two young lovers. And I'm really, really, really proud of it. Unreal. Did you let the actors improvise those scenes, or were you writing that dialogue? So that was scripted out, but I always like to give people a take of ad-libbing and just say, okay, let's do it like it's scripted, but then let's do a freedom take where you get to do whatever, however you would interpret this and what you would add to it. I can't take full credit for that writing. And you clearly love this. Is this going to be a new string to your bow? That would be such an honour. I would do anything to get to keep learning and keep growing in that world. She takes up singing, she's going to take over the world. LAUGHTER So that is like what you just said there is basically an actor's dream, which is you've delivered a scene as scripted, and then when the director has faith in you enough to go... Now, one for, like, go play with it. It's kind of... It's the dream way of being a director. Wow. So please cast me. LAUGHTER We've talked about the Swifties and how much they love you, and fans sometimes find unlikely things. I think in Canada, by accident, a track from 1989 was released, but it wasn't a real track, it was eight seconds of static. Yes, this happened maybe seven or eight years ago. What happened to that track that was eight seconds of static? It went number one. LAUGHTER I don't... I don't know how, but maybe it's some metaphor, some symbolism about the sounds of silence... LAUGHTER ..having a moment of quiet. I love someone trying to present a chart show in Canada and going, and now it's number one! LAUGHTER It was ridiculous. I don't... I mean, I don't know how... I don't know why I'm this lucky and have them doing stuff like that for me. LAUGHTER I don't... I don't know how.