Taylor Swift does not have a good track record when it comes to picking movie roles. Yes! She’s great at crafting a pop song and even mastered a folk song or two, but her movie experiences always end up at the butt of the joke. Most recently, there was Amsterdam, the star-studded Oscar bait from this year. Then there was…Cats which we don’t have to talk about. But when you look back and think of all the not-so-great roles she acted in, you also have to remember how many roles she didn’t play, including one very key character from Les Miserables.
Swift appeared on The Grant Norton Show this week alongside Eddie Redmayne, who became a household name after appearing in 2012’s epic musical Les Miserables. But the actor also revealed that he and Swift had screen-tested together before in what turned out to be a “nightmare.”
Via EW, the pop star explained, “Basically, I was up for two roles. I had the look of Cosette and the range vocally of Éponine, so it was established I was there for a good time, but not for a long time. I wasn’t going to get the role.” Cosette went to Amanda Seyfried, while Samantha Barks played Éponine.
She continued, “But they asked if I would like to go to London to do a screen test with Eddie, who is one of my favorite actors, and I thought, ‘This isn’t an experience I am going to get again in my life,’ so I said yes.” After arriving, the crew immediately put her in period-specific costumes complete with painted-on black teeth. “They made me look like death and it became a nightmare. When I met Eddie I didn’t open my mouth to speak,” she concluded.
Redmayne added that the experience was not pleasant for him either due to his lunch of garlic knots and pizza. “I thought we would just be singing off each other — I didn’t know we would be in each other’s arms,” he said. “My overriding memory of it is that I had had pizza and garlic dough balls beforehand, and all I could think about was my garlic breath while Taylor was dying in my arms and I was trying to show emotion.”
It wasn’t all a waste, because director Tom Hooper kept in touch with Swift for years and eventually decided to cast her…..in Cats. You win some, you lose some. Swift is winning other things, so she’ll be fine!