Shawn Levy compares Taylor Swift to Steven Spielberg: “She has the strength of her convictions”
As filmmakers, what do Taylor Swift and Steven Spielberg have in common? The answer is almost certainly nothing, but one fellow director is inclined to disagree and suggest the mind-bogglingly successful singer has more than a few Spielbergian qualities behind the camera.
For talking’s sake, let’s pit them against each other based strictly on their behind-the-camera credits. In one corner, there’s the single highest-grossing director in cinema history, who has three Academy Award wins from 22 nominations, nine Golden Globes, and a dozen Primetime Emmys.
Spielberg has helmed several of the greatest movies ever made – with Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, and Jurassic Park among them – as part of a filmography currently boasting 36 features that stretches back over half a century. In short, he’s one of the best to ever do it.
In the other corner, Swift has directed or co-directed a handful of her own music videos including a 15-minute short film, and in December 2022 it was announced she’d be making her feature-length debut in an untitled mystery picture hailing from Disney subsidiary Searchlight.
Obviously, there’s a gulf there that could generously be described as cavernous at best. Still, somebody familiar with both of them on a personal and professional level – thus eliminating the element of bias, theoretically speaking – thinks that Swift has showcased an artistic sensibility that isn’t entirely dissimilar from Spielberg’s signature style of heartfelt emotion and visual grandeur.
Swift’s friend and acquaintance Shawn Levy, who starred in the aforementioned ‘All Too Well’ short, is Ryan Reynolds’ current muse and Deadpool & Wolverine director. Levy helmed Hugh Jackman’s robot boxing blockbuster Real Steel, which the bearded icon executive produced.
“Taylor, the depth of her vision for how she wants a creative piece to be, whether it’s a lyric, a melody, a bridge, a concert tour, a video, it’s profound,” he gushed to Entertainment Weekly. “It’s profoundly vivid, and she has the strength of her convictions.”
Ushering in his Spielbergian connotations, Levy reflected on a Real Steel moment that he felt was replicated when he worked with Swift. “I said to him, ‘How do you know it’s the right shot?’. His answer was, ‘The way you see it, that makes it right’. I feel like that’s something Taylor Swift has figured out really well because that’s about trusting your instinct.”
Levy thinks “she has the makings of a hell of a director,” which may or may not be proven true when she finally makes that jump to features. Some of the industry’s finest creative minds kicked off their careers in the world of music videos before taking Hollywood by storm, and looking at what she’s accomplished so far, it would be foolish to write her off.
