Ah, the Twilight movies. These days, it’s a nostalgic moment in pop culture that many of us were fully obsessed with back in the day. And because of the movie adaptation success, audiences fell head over heels for actors like Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Ashley Greene. And apparently, we could have also spotted Taylor Swift in The Twilight Saga: New Moon if the movie’s director hadn’t said no to her hopes to be part of the phenomenon.
Chris Weitz took on the Twilight mantle for its first sequel, New Moon, back in late 2008, where he would go on to bring the franchise’s werewolves to life for the first time alongside Italy’s Volturi. While sitting down with The Twilight Effect Podcast, the director shared one bit during the casting process where he unfortunately had to turn down Taylor Swift. In his words:
Taylor Swift was a huge Twi-hard, 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 Twi-hard! She would be someone at the cafeteria, or the diner or whatever, but she just wants to be in this movie.’
As Weitz explained, he had a connection to Swift, who at the time had just blown up with her debut album, and it was also around this time that her sophomore record Fearless rolled out with hits like “Love Story,” “White Horse’ and “You Belong With Me.” Here’s why the director had to turn her down:
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.
Chris Weitz made the tough decision of rejecting Taylor Swift from being part of New Moon because he didn’t want audiences to be taken out of the storyline because of a cameo from her. And hey, he’s right, Twilight audiences were also overwhelmingly Swifties, and we would have just lost our minds and forgot Bella was facing some serious heartbreak if that cameo really happened.
If Taylor Swift had hit her folklore and evermore era sooner, she might have at least been a good fit for the incredible soundtrack which featured Death Cab For Cutie, Muse, Thom Yorke, Bon Iver and Grizzly Bear, among others. At the time, Swift was a pop country star, but in 2020, she recorded a couple songs with Bon Iver. When she released her song “Willow,” many fans felt it reminded them of New Moon’s Volturi.
Although it’s sad a 19-year-old Taylor Swift didn’t get her Twilight dreams come true, she later starred alongside Taylor Lautner in the 2010 romantic comedy Valentine’s Day, along with being in the movie's soundtrack and dating the actor at the center of Team Jacob for a little while. So maybe she kind of got in on the Twilight action anyway?
Taylor Swift's music has not only been part of many movies and television shows, the singer has also dipped her toes into acting over the years, such as with Cats, where she went to cat movement school like the Twilight actors. She’s next set to be part of the upcoming 2022 movie with Christian Bale and Margot Robbie, Amsterdam. The singer is clearly doing fine, but Weitz and the cast surely lost out on perhaps becoming besties with T. Swift.
