Why 'Twilight' Director Regrets Turning Down Pop Star's Cameo
He'll just have to shake this one off.
Swifties and Twi-hards alike are surely mourning what could have been with the news that New Moon director Chris Weitz had an easy opportunity to cast superstar Taylor Swift in the film and turned it down.
On Tuesday, August 16, The Twilight Effect—a podcast hosted by Ashley Greene, who played Alice in the series, and Melanie Howe—uploaded this week's episode, featuring an interview with the director of the franchise's second film. The trio talked about some of the series castings that fell to Weitz, like most members of the wolf pack and the Volturi. During the conversation, some celebrities who were vying for a spot in the installment at the time arose.
For example, Weitz already knew Dakota Fanning was a "Twi-hard" going into it. The actress, who played Jane, was ready to take on the role no matter how big or small, though Weitz joked about the interaction with her agent. "Look, she's going to do this movie. But please just don't, you know, like, you have to understand that she's Dakota Fanning, and you know there's like a certain amount that won't be insulting," her agents said, according to Weitz, begging him not to cut her role too much. "I know she's going to do it anyway, so, like, we don't have a bargaining position," he shared.
"They're like, 'She wants to do this, and we have no say,'" Howe joked.
But the craziest casting (or lack thereof), according to Weitz, was none other than Swift. Weitz said that, at the time, the two of them shared the same agent, who told him, "Taylor would like to be in this movie, not because of you but because she's a Twi-hard," he said with a laugh.
Weitz shared that Swift was up for any role; she just wanted to be a part of her favorite franchise. "She will be someone at the cafeteria, or the diner, or whatever," their agent told Weitz. "She just wants to be in this movie."
It was "the hardest thing" for him to say no, Weitz said. "[But] the moment Taylor Swift walks onto the screen, like for about five minutes, nobody is going to be able to process anything," he reasoned, believing that Swift, who had only recently released her sophomore album Fearless, was already too famous for the indie production.
In retrospect, Weitz is kicking himself for the decision. "Wow, I could have been hanging out with Taylor Swift," he said, joking about costing himself the chance to befriend the singer. "But she must have just been like, 'Who is this jerk?'"
He went on to confess that sometimes you just have to make decisions in the best interest of the film, though he was also big enough to admit, "It's kind of funny that I was saying, you know, for this movie, which is about a girl who doesn't know whether she should love a vampire or a werewolf, and this family of the undead, and I was like, 'Oh, that would really throw from the realism of the movie,' you know? So."
All in all, getting rejected from the series must not have upset the star too much, as she went on to date Taylor Lautner, who played Jacob, later that year after they met on the set of Valentine's Day.
As for the fans, a Swift x Twilight collaboration will just have to remain another wildest dream.
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