Despite media speculation months ago that Taylor Swift’s 15-minute All Too Well short film could make her an Oscar nominee, and despite her song “Carolina” from Where The Crawdads Sing making the Oscars shortlist, Swift ultimately didn’t make the cut when the Academy Award nominations were announced today.
Fellow pop stars Lady Gaga and Rihanna earned spots though for Best Original Song, for Top Gun: Maverick‘s “Hold My Hand” and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s “Lift Me Up,” respectively. “Carolina” wasn’t nominated, although it did make the short list of the 15 songs the Academy considered for the category. “Carolina” did receive a Golden Globe and Critics Choice nomination in the category, although it did not receive the award at either ceremony.
Swift’s All Too Well didn’t even make the short list, nor was Swift’s small role in 2022’s Amsterdam nominated for anything. All Too Well was widely successful on YouTube, though, where it has received over 82 million views.
Swift did campaign slightly for All Too Well, notably appearing in Variety‘s Directors on Directors series in conversation with The Banshees of Inisherin‘s Martin McDonagh.
(McDonagh did receive a Best Directing Oscar nomination today.) She also screened the short film at the Toronto International Film Festival and hosted a talk about her directing process. Swift will be directing her first feature film, based on her own original script, for Searchlight Pictures soon.
Swift told McDonagh for Variety that directing wasn’t something she always wanted to do; it’s a role that just made sense for her over time. “I always wanted to tell stories,” she said. “I have always written stories, poetry, songs. And I think this just grew out of that storytelling. And the more I did it, the more I loved it.”
Her transition to directing her own music videos “actually came out of necessity,” she explained. “I was writing my videos for years, and I had a video that was a very specific concept I had written [2019’s “The Man”], which was that I wanted to be prosthetically turned into a man and live my life as a man. And I wanted a female director to direct it. And the few that I reached out to were fortunately booked. We like it when women work. So I was like, ‘I could do it, maybe.’ And when I did direct, I just thought, ‘This is actually more fulfilling than I ever could have imagined.’”
Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.