In 2009, the world was enamored with two major pop culture moments. One was the continued reign that the Twilight movies had over every high schooler who had their parents bring them to Hot Topic to buy a “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob” shirt (they still sell those, by the way). The next major gossip was the fact that Jacob himself, Taylor Lautner, was dating rising country-pop star Taylor Swift while filming the second movie. If those two significant pop culture milestones had overlapped even more, the world would have been a different place. It almost happened!
Chris Weitz, the director of New Moon, recently stopped by The Twilight Effect podcast, hosted by Twilight star Ashley Greene and Melanie Howe, where he dropped a major behind-the-scenes secret about the movie: Taylor Swift wanted to be in it. And she was denied!
Weitz and Swift had the same agent, who asked if he could get the then 19-year-old to be in the popular franchise as an extra. He ultimately decided that it would be too distracting.
Chris Weitz: 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. She will be someone at the cafeteria, or at the diner, or whatever, but she just wants to be in this movie.’ And the hardest thing for me was to be like ‘the moment that Taylor Swift walks onto the screen, for like five minutes nobody is going to be able to process anything.’
Ashley Greene: I didn’t know that.
Melanie Howe: I didn’t know that.
Chris Weitz: I kicked myself for it too, because I was like ‘I won’t be able to hang out with Taylor Swift.’ And I sort of felt like I cost myself a chance to-
Ashley Greene: -to hang out with T. Swift.
Chris Weitz: But sometimes you made decisions for what’s best for the film
At the time, Swift had just released her second album Fearless, and was becoming closer to Lautner. The director thought that having Swift in the movie would take viewers out of the movie. We all know what happens when a pop star enters a universally popular franchise, and it was not surprising that Weitz decided she shouldn’t make a cameo.
The two dated for a few months and broke up shortly after the movie hit theaters. Luckily, Swift parodied the vampire flick on SNL, so we got a taste of what she would be like in the universe alongside Bill Hader. Reboot it, now!
