Taylor Swift's Extended Interview - The Graham Norton Show
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00:00 I mean, I'm a Swifty.
00:02 [LAUGHTER]
00:03 I'm a Swifty.
00:03 [APPLAUSE]
00:06 You know, we're highly aerial birds, you know?
00:11 And over the years, we've bumped into each other and been friends.
00:16 He doesn't want to take credit for the fact that he's so nice.
00:18 He sent me roses when I played in Dublin.
00:20 Yeah.
00:21 He doesn't even take credit for doing--
00:22 You read roses, you know.
00:23 He's a truly great person.
00:25 You know.
00:25 You sent that picture of Ava to our side,
00:27 so I'll follow the edge out of nowhere.
00:30 Beautiful.
00:31 And he's just that great and thoughtful,
00:33 just the best there is.
00:34 I better have a drink.
00:35 [LAUGHTER]
00:36 And here's the thing.
00:37 So Bono and Taylor did not work together,
00:38 but weirdly, Taylor and Eddie, you have worked together.
00:42 We have?
00:42 Oh, wow.
00:43 Yeah.
00:44 It was a decade ago.
00:45 I once died in his arms in a screen test for Les Mis.
00:49 Oh, wow.
00:50 I did not know this.
00:51 I did not know this.
00:53 There's a lot that people don't know about this story.
00:56 Basically, I was auditioning for two roles in Les Mis,
01:01 and I'd done a few auditions and gone to New York and whatever.
01:04 And I think it had been established
01:06 that I had more of a look of Cosette,
01:09 but I had the range vocally of Eponine.
01:11 So it was established that I was there for a good time,
01:15 not a long time.
01:15 [LAUGHTER]
01:17 I wasn't going to get this role.
01:18 But they were like, do you want to come to London
01:20 for one last screen test, and you'll get to screen test
01:23 with Eddie Redmayne?
01:24 I'm like, this seems like an experience
01:26 I want to have in my life.
01:27 You're one of my favorite actors.
01:29 You're so ridiculously talented.
01:32 And I was like, so yeah, I'll go to London.
01:34 [APPLAUSE]
01:37 Indeed.
01:38 I get there, and they're like, OK,
01:40 so we really want to make you look like Eponine.
01:42 We're going to try to do--
01:43 you know, she wasn't loaded.
01:47 She had brown teeth.
01:48 She didn't have a lot of money, so--
01:50 A 19th century street urchin.
01:52 Yeah, exactly.
01:53 I'm trying to say it in a way that makes sense.
01:55 She didn't floss.
01:57 Exactly.
01:58 They were like, we're actually going to paint
01:59 your teeth brown for this.
02:00 And I'm like, so you're going to do that after I meet Eddie
02:03 Redmayne, right?
02:03 That's not something you do before.
02:06 I get to meet people, and then you do the brown teeth.
02:08 I'm like, no, no, it's--
02:09 this is just-- everybody's going to meet you
02:11 with the brown teeth.
02:12 And we're going to do big circles under your eyes,
02:14 like you're near death.
02:16 And I was like, this has immediately
02:19 become a nightmare for me.
02:21 And so then I-- you were so nice.
02:24 I think when I met you, I was like, son of a bitch.
02:26 [LAUGHTER]
02:27 What was hilarious?
02:28 You know, as you walked in as a 19th century French street
02:32 urchin, and I was not expecting that.
02:35 But my overwhelming memory of it, Taylor, was I had--
02:39 I'd just been to Pizza Express beforehand,
02:41 and I had some garlic dough balls.
02:44 Oh, God.
02:44 Oh, God.
02:45 I thought we were going to be singing off of each other,
02:47 you know.
02:48 But they had us.
02:49 Also, it was so weird, because Taylor was dressed fully
02:51 as Eponine, and I was like in my tracksuit.
02:53 [LAUGHTER]
02:54 And they had us on the floor, like singing
02:56 sweet nothings into each other.
02:58 And all I knew is I just had garlic bread.
03:00 [LAUGHTER]
03:01 And I had brown teeth.
03:02 [LAUGHTER]
03:03 We're just struggling.
03:04 It was one of these-- it was like trying
03:06 to show emotion, but at the same time not to punish you.
03:09 You were weeping.
03:09 And I just thought it was because of how I looked.
03:12 [LAUGHTER]
03:13 I just felt so bad.
03:14 You're like, I have to be close to her right now.
03:16 This is-- yeah.
03:17 This was not the method, no?
03:18 No.
03:19 [LAUGHTER]
03:19 That's nice to hear we were both struggling in that moment.
03:21 It was a beautiful audition.
03:22 It was a beautiful audition.
03:23 Everyone starts somewhere.
03:25 We've got a very early gig of Taylor.
03:28 This is you.
03:29 Now, you haven't sold out.
03:31 Oh, yeah.
03:32 [LAUGHTER]
03:32 [APPLAUSE]
03:33 But there's still some.
03:37 Do you remember this?
03:39 Yeah.
03:39 This was a big deal for me.
03:41 I was 14.
03:42 And it was an event called the Nashville Rubber Duck Race.
03:46 [LAUGHTER]
03:47 And it is exactly as it sounds.
03:50 They would put rubber ducks in the river.
03:52 And see who won.
03:54 Wow.
03:55 And I was the official entertainment.
03:56 As you can see, the banner is incredibly high concept.
04:00 [LAUGHTER]
04:01 It just says it like it is.
04:02 You know, like this is her name.
04:04 Did you play before the race or after the race?
04:06 Oh, you know what?
04:07 That's a really good question.
04:08 I think I blocked a lot of this out.
04:10 OK, fair enough.
04:10 [LAUGHTER]
04:11 I won't dwell.
04:11 It might be triggering.
04:13 That was the whole crowd.
04:13 The whole crowd is in the shot.
04:15 I can see three people there.
04:16 They do look like fans of rubber duck racing.
04:18 [LAUGHTER]
04:21 Alex, when they were kids dreaming of being singers,
04:24 you were a kid.
04:25 But am I right that when you got spotted,
04:26 you didn't particularly want to be a footballer?
04:28 No.
04:28 I used to play in a football cage at the end of my road
04:31 with the boys.
04:32 And then there was a referee in the local area who was like,
04:35 there's a women's team, Arsenal.
04:36 I really want to take you down.
04:37 I was like, no, I'm totally fine.
04:38 My mom had packed me a cap for a son for a packed lunch that day.
04:41 I was like, I'm totally fine in this football cage.
04:43 And she was like, no, we are taking you.
04:45 And then I got signed to Arsenal when I was eight.
04:47 Yeah.
04:48 It's really early.
04:49 [APPLAUSE]
04:51 Yeah.
04:51 What is a football cage?
04:53 A football cage?
04:54 Yeah.
04:54 It was just literally like balls.
04:56 There was concrete.
04:57 It was just nothing in there.
04:58 But for me, it was everything.
04:59 It's where all the dreams started.
05:01 Literally, you had cars either side of this football cage.
05:04 And if the ball went out, the car would come along and pop it.
05:07 And that would be the end of playtime.
05:08 They're like, see you tomorrow.
05:10 [LAUGHTER]
05:11 They should introduce that into professional football.
05:13 I'd love that.
05:14 Playing against a car.
05:16 My friends are so jealous that I'm getting to meet you.
05:18 Because we just look at you as such an inspiration.
05:21 Like breaking through in such a male-dominated industry.
05:23 You should be so proud of yourself.
05:25 [APPLAUSE]
05:27 You know what I love as well?
05:29 Because you've done so much with the US national team.
05:32 When they're on and you've brought them out on stage.
05:35 And we see that over here.
05:36 And we're like, that is it.
05:37 How incredible is that?
05:38 So we know you've always been behind supporting other women
05:41 and leading the way.
05:42 So thank you.
05:43 That's amazing.
05:43 [APPLAUSE]
05:45 Look what we're having a love in.
05:47 [INAUDIBLE]
05:49 Taylor, we've talked about the Swifties
05:51 and how much they love you.
05:52 And fans sometimes find unlikely things.
05:56 I think in Canada, by accident, a track from 1989 was released.
06:01 But it wasn't a real track.
06:03 It was 8 Seconds of Static.
06:04 Yes, this happened maybe seven or eight years ago.
06:07 Yeah.
06:08 What happened to that track that was 8 Seconds of Static?
06:11 It went number one.
06:12 [LAUGHTER]
06:14 I don't know how.
06:16 But maybe it's some metaphor, some symbolism
06:19 about the sounds of silence.
06:20 [LAUGHTER]
06:22 Having a moment of quiet.
06:23 I love someone trying to present a chart show in Canada
06:26 and going, and now it's number one.
06:27 [LAUGHTER]
06:29 It was ridiculous.
06:30 I don't know.
06:30 I mean, I don't know how--
06:32 I don't know why I'm this lucky and have them
06:34 doing stuff like that for me.
06:36 [APPLAUSE]
06:37 Swifties, and I think there are some here.
06:38 [LAUGHTER]
06:42 So Swifties, rejoice because Taylor's new album, Midnight,
06:45 is out now.
06:46 [APPLAUSE]
06:47 Yes, it is.
06:49 I've got it here.
06:51 Now, there are different ones, aren't there?
06:53 There's different ones.
06:53 Yes.
06:54 So I've got-- which one have I got?
06:55 I've got--
06:56 You've got the main version of it.
06:58 Oh, yeah, yeah.
06:58 That's the standard version.
07:00 It's a concept album, and the main question
07:02 is what keeps you up at night.
07:03 So it's-- you could be up at night
07:05 because you're reeling from just having met someone
07:08 and you're falling for them.
07:10 Or you could be plotting revenge.
07:13 You could be--
07:14 Garlic.
07:15 Garlic bread.
07:15 Garlic.
07:16 [LAUGHTER]
07:17 Yeah, you could be thinking about the time
07:19 that they painted your teeth brown to be any other name.
07:23 You could be thinking about what could have been.
07:26 There's just so many possibilities.
07:28 If you think of that as a creative writing prompt, which
07:31 is what I did, that's where the album came from.
07:33 And this album couldn't have only--
07:35 I mean, amazing reviews.
07:37 You broke streaming records.
07:38 And a lot of the rave reviews have asked the question--
07:40 and it is a question--
07:41 that the great songwriting on this album
07:43 is part of it due to the fact that you've
07:46 been doing this sort of strange work of re-recording
07:50 your back catalog.
07:51 So it was like you were doing homework on songwriting.
07:54 I think so.
07:54 I really do.
07:56 So I've been re-recording my first six albums
08:00 because there was a thing that happened where I had wanted
08:04 to own my work of my first six albums
08:06 when I changed record labels.
08:08 My first six albums were actually sold away from me.
08:13 And so I decided to just--
08:16 I just figured if I made them the first time,
08:18 I can make them again.
08:20 I love it.
08:20 I love it.
08:21 [APPLAUSE]
08:22 It's an amazing moment.
08:23 It's an amazing moment.
08:25 [APPLAUSE]
08:28 But-- yes, yes.
08:30 But tell me this.
08:32 Is it working?
08:33 Like, are radio stations playing the Taylor version?
08:35 Yes.
08:36 There's actually-- one of the things I was most thankful for
08:39 was there's a company of many stations in America
08:43 called iHeart.
08:44 And they have sworn to only play my new versions.
08:48 And they've said that they'll switch it out for the old
08:50 versions every time I put out a new version of a song, which
08:53 is just like--
08:54 it's so heartwarming to me because this is something
08:57 that I care about, but I don't expect
09:00 other people to care about it.
09:01 It's something that's very personal to me.
09:02 And it's a lot of work, but it's like--
09:04 it's really fun and rewarding for me.
09:07 And I can't believe people have actually gotten behind it
09:09 the way they have.
09:10 And doing this, going back over your old work,
09:13 has led to this wonderful thing where--
09:15 so "All Too Well" is now--
09:18 [APPLAUSE]
09:20 It's now a short film.
09:23 Yes.
09:24 So it was a short song, then it was a longer song,
09:26 and now it's a short film.
09:28 OK, how do I shorten this?
09:30 So basically, "All Too Well" was a song
09:32 that came out originally on an album called
09:34 Red, which came out in 2012.
09:36 I always loved this song.
09:38 It was never a single, but the fans really loved this song.
09:42 And I had made the mistake of saying in an interview
09:45 the truth, which is that it had started out
09:47 as a 10-minute song with six or seven extra verses,
09:51 and we had had to cut it down to the 4 and 1/2,
09:55 5-minute length that it ended up.
09:58 My fans would not let it go.
10:00 They were like--
10:02 I'd be doing an interview for something else, albums later,
10:04 and they'd be like, where's the 10-minute version?
10:07 Where is it?
10:08 So basically, for the re-record, I was like,
10:11 I am going to put out the 10-minute version.
10:14 I'm just going to show them what it was.
10:17 And you know what?
10:19 I really want to make--
10:20 I want to tell a story that goes along with it visually, that's
10:24 more than a music video.
10:26 I want to--
10:26 I'd been directing my music videos for a while
10:30 at this point, and writing and directing them was really fun.
10:32 [APPLAUSE]
10:34 Yeah.
10:36 I just love it.
10:37 It's a very natural extension of my storytelling,
10:39 so I thought, I want to make a short film
10:42 and really do this song justice and also create a short film
10:48 that stands on its own.
10:49 So I was very lucky to be able to cast Sadie Sink and Dylan
10:53 O'Brien to be these two young lovers.
10:55 And I'm really, really, really proud of it.
10:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:03 [MUSIC ENDS]
11:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]