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Why Taylor Swift Was Turned Down for ‘Twilight’ Movie Role: Singer Pleaded to Appear in Film
Superstar Taylor Swift was such a huge “Twihard” that she desperately wanted to appear in 2009’s The Twilight Gaga: New Moon in any capacity, even as an extra. But her request was turned down by director Chris Weitz, who put the kibosh on Taylor’s desire to be part of the project.
“Taylor Swift and I had the same agent at the time, and he said like, ‘Taylor would like to be in this movie. Not because of you, but because she’s a Twihard. But she will be someone at the cafeteria, or the diner, or whatever but she just wants to be in this movie,'” Chris revealed on the Tuesday, August 16, episode The Twilight Effect podcast.
But despite the coup of having one of the biggest stars in the world in his project, Taylor’s enormous fame worked against her, as Chris thought it would be too much of a distraction for audiences.
“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,'” he explained to hosts Ashley Greene and Melanie Howe. Ashley appeared in the Twilight movie franchise as Alice Cullen.
“I kick myself for it too because I was like, ‘Wow, I could have been, like, hanging out with Taylor Swift and maybe we could’ve been friends or something. And so, I sort of feel like, ugh, I had sort of cost myself a chance to hang out with Taylor Swift and she must’ve just been like, ‘Who is this jerk who would say no?'” Chris confessed.
“But sometimes you make decisions, and you go, ‘This is for the best of the film,'” he ultimately decided.
The singer got her chance to show off the acting skills that the franchise missed out on when she hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time in November 2009. Taylor shot a parody of Twilight featuring a Frankenstein character instead of a vampire while playing high school student “Stella,” a satire of Kristen Stewart‘s Bella Swan character in the films.
Taylor’s Stella fell for green-skinned “Philip Frank,” played by then-SNL star Bill Hader, as their love story was explored with the same earnestness as Bella and vampire Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, in the Twilight saga. She may not have been cast in the film franchise, but Taylor got to show her “Twihard” side in the hilarious parody.
