Guillermo del Toro Praises Taylor Swift as a Director After First Feature Film is Confirmed

On Friday, it was announced that Taylor Swift is set to direct her first feature-length film with a project for Searchlight Pictures. Even without much in the way of details on the project, fans of Swift are already excited and that includes filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro — a filmmaker that Swift said in a recent interview that she admired. Now, speaking with W Magazine, Del Toro reveals high praise for Swift as well.

“She’s a very accomplished director, she’s incredibly articulate and deep about what she’s trying to do — and what she will do,” Del Toro said. “I have the greatest admiration for her; we had one of the most stimulating and gratifying conversations. We have many, many common interests. And her interest in fable and myth and the origins of fairy tale is quite deep. I gave her a few books that I thought would be interesting for her—among them, very importantly, a book that was useful for me in creating Pan’s Labyrinth called The Science of Fairy Tales, which codifies and talks about fairy tale lore.”

About Taylor Swift and directing

Swift has previously directed a few of her music videos as well as All Too Well: The Short Film.  The feature for Searchlight will be the largest scale project from her in terms of directing to date.

“It would be so fantastic to write and direct something… a feature,” she said according to Variety. “I don’t see it being bigger, in terms of scale. I loved making a film that was so intimate.”

In some other comments, Swift talked about how daunting directing a big movie could be. “I was always curious,” the star continued. “I started to venture into the edit [for music videos] and making changes and meddling… it started with meddling.”

Before signing up with Searchlight, the topic of imposter syndrome came up with Mills. “I had this imposter syndrome in my head saying, ‘No, you don’t do that. Other people do that who went to school to do that,” Swift began before the other director explained he never went to school for film. “Oh! It’s fantastic to know that. That makes me feel better. Don’t you feel like it’s an amazing exercise in trusting gut instinct? There are so many decisions you have to make. Saying ‘I don’t know’ really isn’t an option most of the time.”

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