Before Taylor Swift is a singer, commencement-speech-giver or recently exposed frequent flier, she’s first and foremost a Twi-hard.
So it was only natural that she’d use her considerable pop culture might to land a role in the teen vampire saga Twilight, going as far as to present her case to Chris Weitz, the director of the New Moon sequel.
But the filmmaker recently revealed that he denied her request because he was afraid she’d prove to be a bit too, well, sparkly.
“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,’” the director said on a recent episode of the podcast The Twilight Effect With Ashley Greene and Melanie Howe, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The filmmaker was told that the singer would play any role, including “someone at the cafeteria, or the diner or whatever,” because she “just wants to be in this movie,” he said.
But despite her enthusiasm, massive fanbase and romance with a certain other Taylor around that time, Chris put the kibosh on the cameo.
“The moment that Taylor Swift walks onto the screen, for about five minutes, nobody is going to be able to process anything,” he said about his decision to turn down the global superstar.
The director added: “I kick myself for it, too, because I was like, ‘Wow, I could’ve been hanging out with Taylor Swift. We could have been friends.’”
Ultimately, Chris said he’s at peace with a choice he made for the “best of the film,” but still wonders how Taylor handled the brush-off.
“She must have just been like, ‘Who is this jerk?’” he remarked.
Taylor has, of course, gone on to repeatedly dabble in the acting world with roles in films like Valentine’s Day, The Giver, Cats and David O. Russell’s upcoming crime drama Amsterdam, as well as series including New Girl and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
She also directed All Too Well: The Short Film, which served as the music video for her expanded fan version of the beloved Red ballad. The project could ultimately land Taylor her first Oscar, since it was recently deemed eligible to be nominated in the Best Live Action Short category.
And, as she tends to do, Taylor prevailed in the Twilight department, too.
While hosting Saturday Night Live back in 2013, she used the opportunity to essentially write herself into her own Twilight movie, starring as a Bella Swan-esque character who falls for a hunky Frankenstein in a spoof called Firelight.
Now, look what rejection made her do!