Taylor Swift & Martin McDonagh talk about symbolism in Varietys Directors series

June 28, 2024

Variety does an “actors on actors” series for the awards season, and they also do a “directors on directors” series. I remember when every outlet would just do “roundtables” with six or seven artists, but now the thing is one-on-one. Well, last week, Variety announced their pairings for their directors series. Keep in mind, these things are part of the whole awards-season blitz, and usually it’s a combo of different experiences and backgrounds, with the main similarity being “they both have awards-buzzy films out.” Well, they paired Martin McDonagh with Taylor Swift. I cannot. In general. No disrespect to Taylor – she’s directed several of her music videos and she’s done an okay job… for a music video director. But she has not directed a full-length film. She is not part of some awards-season conversation as a feature director. McDonagh wrote and directed The Banshees of Inisherin, and he’s already won an Oscar and been nominated for several more.

On Tuesday, Variety finally released the video. I’ll give them both some credit – McDonagh didn’t pitch a fit about being paired with Taylor. He takes her seriously as an artist and a visual artist and he describes himself as a fan. Taylor takes it all very seriously. She feels like the one moving the conversation forward and she talks a lot more than him. It ends up working in a weird way – they both buy into the idea that this is completely natural and normal.

Yeah. I won’t insult either of them. Taylor does say that she was invited to one of the premieres of Banshees and she’s clearly a big fan of that movie. It works on that level – Taylor being sent to interview a director she admires. But overall, I don’t know – it’s a stunt and it worked in the sense that this will probably be the most-watched Variety Director-on-Director video.

IG courtesy of Variety, photos courtesy of Backgrid.

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