Taylor Swift Reveals Major Career Hopes After Screening ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’ at Tribeca 2022

Taylor Swift has already conquered the music industry, and she might be setting her sights on movies next. After a screening of All Too Well: The Short Film, Swift said she would like to write and direct a feature film soon. Swift already has some directing experience, having helmed several of her own music videos and the 15-minute All Too Well film.

“I was always very curious. I was always looking and learning, and trying to absorb as much as I possibly could,” Swift told C’Mon, C’Mon filmmaker Mike Mills at the Beacon Theater in New York City, reports PEOPLE. “A few music videos [into my career], I just started going into the edit and making changes. It started with meddling, and it went from meddling with the edit to then writing the treatments for the music videos… That was almost ten years ago.”

sadie sink with taylor swift and dylan o’brien today at tribeca film festival all too well short film. pic.twitter.com/aYzGBG8zkg

— sadie thinker (@sadiethink) June 11, 2022

Swift always came up with the ideas for her music videos and then handed the directing job to seasoned filmmakers. In 2019, Swift made her solo directing debut with “The Man,” which won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction. Since then, Swift has directed all of her solo videos but has collaborated with others on videos with other singers. (For example, Blake Lively directed the 2021 video for Swift’s duet with Chris Stapleton, “I Bet You Think About Me.”)

Swift directed “The Man” herself out of necessity. She wanted to hire a female filmmaker, but none were available. “All my favorite female directors were booked and busy, which is great. We love that,” she said. “Once I started directing music videos, I didn’t not want to do it.”

Since helming “The Man” and receiving advice from her Miss Americana documentary director Lana Wilson, Swift’s interest in directing a feature has only increased. She’s still a little nervous about directing though. “I think I had this imposter syndrome in my head saying, ‘No, you don’t do that. Other people do that who went to school to [direct],’” Swift told Mills.

Mills, who directed music videos for Yoko Ono, The National, Blonde Redhead, Moby, and others before breaking into directing features, told Swift he never went to school to direct either. That made her feel a bit better. “Don’t you feel like it’s an amazing exercise in trusting gut instinct? There are so many decisions you have to make,” Swift told Mills. “Saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m not sure’ really isn’t an option most of the time.”

Swift said it “would be so fantastic” to direct a feature. “I don’t see it being bigger in terms of scale,” she said. “I loved making a film that was so intimate with a crew that was relatively small, just a really solid group of people that I trusted.”

There is a long history of music video directors breaking into features. David Fincher is one of the best known, having directed videos for Madonna, George Michael, Billy Idol, Paula Abdul, Aerosmith, and others before he made his first movie. Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, Antoine Fuqua, and Gore Verbinski are just a few directors who succeeded in both music videos and features. There’s no reason to think Swift couldn’t join the club soon.