Argylle: Who Is Elly Conway?

Argylle is now in theaters, and even though fans may be wondering who is the real Agent Argylle, the bigger question is who is Elly Conway? The new action-espionage comedy from Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn has been shrouded in secrecy since it was announced, revealed to be a movie based on novel that hadn’t even been published yet. Not only that, but the Argylle book is the debut novel of the author, a mysterious figure said to be named Elly Conway. There are some interesting theories out there and now, we’re breaking the biggest ones down.

Why is Elly Conway’s Identity A Mystery?

Before we dive into the top theories as to who Elly Conway actually is, we have to look at why people think “Elly Conway” is an alias for someone else. Some of the early hints that something might be unusual about Conway came pretty early on with a discrepancy about the author’s name. In the official announcement about the deal for the Argylle film, Conway’s name is listed as “Ellie Conway” and, at one point, that is also how it was spelled on the Penguin Random House website. There’s also the matter of the author’s official bio on the publisher’s website which is extremely brief, reading “Elly Conway was born and raised in upstate New York. She wrote her first novel about Agent Argylle while working as a waitress in a late-night diner.”

Conway’s social media presence also fueled some questions about Conway as both their Instagram and Twitter/X accounts are relatively new (Instagram started in 2022 and Twitter/X in 2023) and have very few posts, all of which are fairly vague — though the first post to Conway’s Instagram has helped fuel one of the bigger theories about their identity (more on that in a bit.)

Argylle‘s Plot Has Also Fueled the Mystery

Feeding into some of the mystery about who Elly Conway is the plot of the movie/novel itself. Per the movie’s description, in Argylle, Elly Conway, an introverted spy novelist who seldom leaves her home, is drawn into the real world of espionage when the plots of her books get a little too close to the activities of a sinister underground syndicate. When Aiden, an undercover spy, shows up to save her from being kidnapped or killed, Elly and her beloved cat Alfie, are plunged into a covert world where nothing, and no one, is what it seems.

Between the sparse social media pages, curious case of the misspelled first name, and that Elly Conway is a major character in Conway’s own book, the whole thing has turned into almost as much a mystery as perhaps the movie itself and that leads us to the theories.

Argylle Theory #1: Taylor Swift is Elly Conway

Probably the biggest and most prevalent theory is a doozy: fans thing that Taylor Swift is secretly Elly Conway. A quick glance at social media, particularly TikTok, will find no shortage of fans outlining their reasons why they think Swift is actually Conway, though a close examination of those “clues” are actually pretty circumstantial.

First, the name Elly Conway matches up to a fictional character appearing in the long-running Australian soap opera Neighbors with that character making their first appearance on that series on December 13th. December 13th is an important day for Taylor Swift and her fans as it happens to be Swift’s birthday. That date is also connected to the author Conway in another way, as December 13, 2022, is the date of the very first post on Conway’s Instagram.

But the 13 connection isn’t quite enough and there is a bit more to the theory. Fans think that Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays Elly Conway in the film, looks like the unnamed red-haired author that Swift portrays in her All Too Well: The Short Film. Fans also draw connections to the fact that Swift has shown a fondness for argyle clothing and has even sold an argyle sweater as merchandise on her website. There’s also the matter of Conway’s cat in the film. The cat featured in the film is a Scottish Fold, which happens to be the same breed as two of Swift’s three cats. The cat is also carried around in a backpack-style cat carrier, something that Swift has also used to carry her cats.

Given that Swift fans are used to tracking hints and clues and figuring out various puzzles involving Swift, it’s not unreasonable that many. have concluded for themselves that Swift is Elly Conway. However, this is a theory that appears to have been debunked. First, Conway has actually debunked this themself. On November 3rd, Conway shared to Twitter/X, “Hello to my new followers. Today I find myself saying the strangest thing, but here goes. I’m not Taylor Swift! We both love cats and I adore her music. I’m sure that when she writes a book she will use her name and it will be as brilliant as everything she does.” Second, Argylle director Vaughn recently debunked the theory as well, telling Rolling Stone that Swift has nothing to do with Argylle.

“I’m not a big internet guy, and it was actually my daughter who came up to me — this is the power of celebrity and the internet — and said, ‘You never told me Taylor wrote the book!’” Vaughn revealed. “And I’m looking at her going, ‘What are you talking about Taylor Swift wrote the book? She didn’t write the book!’ And I was laughing because I was like, ‘It’s not true! She didn’t write the book!’ But my daughter was convinced of it.”

“There is a real book… and it’s a really good book. And there is an Elly Conway who wrote the book, but it’s not Taylor Swift,” Vaughn continued. “And I say that because I imagine Taylor Swift has a load of people trying to jump on her bandwagon left, right, and center, and I don’t want to be a part of that club. I did read the conspiracies and I was like, wow, they don’t leave a stone unturned! But it’s not Taylor Swift. She definitely didn’t write the book.”

Argylle Theory #2: J.K. Rowling is Elly Conway

As the Swift theory started to be questioned, a theory involving another high-profile public figure started to rise: that Elly Conway is actually Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. This theory doesn’t have quite as many bullet points as the Swift theory and while it seems pretty unlikely, it’s also pretty interesting. Proponents of the Rowling-as-Conway theory point to the fact that Rowling already writes novels under a pseudonym — she currently has eight crime novels under the pen name Robert Galbraith — so the idea of Rowling writing a spy thriller under another name wouldn’t necessarily be that much of a stretch.

There’s also a comment made by Vaughn himself that has fans considering that Rowling could be Conway, with Vaughn previously telling The Hollywood Reporter that the film is inspired by Harry Potter, just with spies.

“We wanted to do something very meta,” Vaughn said. “I just loved the idea of what would happen if a wizard went to J.K. Rowling in book three and said, ‘You know what? Wizards are real. Hogwarts is real. I’m real. I’m going show you what it’s really like,’ and going on an adventure.”

He continued, “We thought we’ll do that with spies. So, Elly Conway, I think, in real life will become a J.K. Rowling of spy movies, of spy novels.”

Argylle Theory #3: Matthew Vaughn is Elly Conway

While there are those who think Swift or Rowling are Conway, there are also those who suspect that Argylle might just be the work of Vaughn himself, possibly with a ghost writer — and there are some clues that could indicate as much. First is the book’s copyright. Argylle is copyrighted by Marv Quinn Holdings Limited. Marv Quinn Holdings Limited just so happens to be registered to Vaughn and his wife, Claudia Schiffer. This could suggest that the book was written specifically for the film, rather than the film being based on the movie.

That the book may have been solicited to be written specifically as a tie-in for the movie as a marketing ploy may have a little bit more credence thanks to a curious matter of one of the three people thanked in the acknowledgements of the book. Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society is thanked “for his patient explanation of star charts”. According to The Washington Post, Massey confirmed that he had worked with “a novelist writing a contracted spy thriller for Penguin Random House” but they didn’t go by the name Elly Conway. They went by the name Tammy Cohen. Cohen, it turns out, is a British author who has written several psychological thrillers and uses three different names — Tammy Cohen, Tamar Cohen, and Rachel Rhys. Interestingly Cohen’s literary agent is Felicity Blunt, who just so happens to be the wife of Stanley Tucci… who starred in The King’s Man, which was directed by Vaughn.

Oh, and it’s also worth noting that the cat in the Argylle movie? That’s actually Vaughn’s cat.

“We had a cat on the first day of filming and I fired the cat because he was very expensive and a pain in the ass,” Vaughn revealed. “Then I went home and went into my daughter’s bedroom and said, ‘I’m gonna borrow your cat.’ I didn’t quite think it through that I’d have to drive to work with the cat, every day. And on this film, I’m now a director and a cat handler, and I don’t like cats to be very clear, I’m a dog person, but I’m now a cat person as well, so. They say don’t work with kids, don’t work with animals, if they’re your own kid or animal, might be the way to do it.”

So, who do you think Elly Conway actually is? Have you read Argylle? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section!