If you’re going to make a movie about someone who its star describes as “one of the dominant pop presences for the past 20 years,” then you could do a lot worse than look for inspiration from Taylor Swift. And, speaking about the project, Mother Mary, Anne Hathaway says that’s precisely what she did.
Appearing onThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Hathaway revealed that Swift was one of several musicians she thought of when constructing her character – the eponymous Mother Mary – with other reference points being Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Rosalía and Lorde. More surprisingly, she also listened to James Blake and Nine Inch Nails in preparation for the role.
It sounds like it was Swift in particular, though, who Hathaway kept in mind. “She was just kind of like an angel that I felt was over our heads all the time,” she says, adding that director and writer David Lowry is a “huge Swiftie”, too.
Article continues below“He was really influenced by [Swift’s] Reputation tour for all of the concert scenes,” says Hathaway. “And then I was really influenced by her [2020] tour film Miss Americana and how vulnerable she just let herself be in that… kind of showing that pop stars who we’re so used to seeing like so in their power and so polished you know, what happens when they're kind of in between moments, when they're having a moment of metamorphosis, which can be so painful, and what happens when you're a really public person and you're still trying to figure things out in the spotlight.”
It was this in particular, says Hathaway, that gave her a new-found appreciation for what Swift has achieved: “I was already a fan, but after that I just had so much empathy for her and her humanity and of course her talent.”
Hathaway went on to reveal that she actually knows Swift personally, and saw her on the Eras tour in Germany, where Mother Mary was being filmed.
Perhaps fittingly, one of the writers and producers of the movie’s original songs (including lead ‘single’, Burial) is regular Swift collaborator Jack Antonoff, who worked on them with Charli XCX (someone who Swift doesn’t appear to be quite so much of a fan of). There’s also a song by FKA Twigs on the soundtrack – My Mouth Is Lonely for You.
Mother Mary is released in cinemas on 17 April.
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