Taylor Swift’s got a big reputation. And anything attached to her name has an outsized chance of having its time in the spotlight.
This includes Matthew Vaughn’s new film “Argylle.”
Due to the connections of the Argyle patterned sweater that Sadie Sink wears in “All Too Well: The Short Film,” Swift’s two Scottish fold cats Meredith and Olivia and other connections, the pop singer managed to be the subject of rumors that placed her as the screenwriter for “Argylle.”
Not so fast, Swifties.
As seen in the film’s trailer, Bryce Dallas Howard’s character sports a spacious Argyle-patterned backpack with a glass window through which a Scottish fold cat can be seen. These two coincidental connections took Swifties down the rabbit hole to further compare Howard’s author headshot as Elly Conway to Swift’s brief appearance in “All Too Well: The Short Film,” in which she plays her older self, who has written a book and sports red hair and bangs similar to Howard’s in the film.
But Howard, who plays the author in the film, clarified the true inspiration that involved Swift in the making of the movie in an appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” video of which you can watch below.
“She didn’t. She’s not,” Howard told Barrymore. “Matthew Vaughn saw a picture of Taylor Swift with a backpack and because she is the patron saint of cat ladies pretty much, [he] was like who is this person who is carrying — will not leave their home without their cat, and this seems like a good situation and so and so yeah in large part that was inspired by Taylor.”
Howard also addressed the situation on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon earlier this week, saying that Vaughn must have been “subconsciously influenced” by the songstress.
She went on to tell Fallon that it was “a huge honor to have any association whatsoever with Taylor Swift.”
Vaughn previously confirmed that Swift did not write the book, which released Jan. 9 under the pseudonym Elly Conway. His daughter brought the theory peddled by Swifties to his attention.
“I’m not a big internet guy, and it was actually my daughter who came up to me — this is the power of celebrity and the internet — and said, ‘You never told me Taylor wrote the book!’” Vaughn told Rolling Stone. “And I’m looking at her going, ‘What are you talking about Taylor Swift wrote the book? She didn’t write the book!’ And I was laughing because I was like, ‘It’s not true! She didn’t write the book!’ But my daughter was convinced of it.”
The story centers on Howard’s Conway, a spy novelist with a cat in a backpack who learns that many of the characters from her novel turn out to be real people. She then becomes involved in their schemes, involving international spies, assassins and more driven by various feuds.
“There is a real book … and it’s a really good book. And there is an Elly Conway who wrote the book, but it’s not Taylor Swift,” he added. “And I say that because I imagine Taylor Swift has a load of people trying to jump on her bandwagon left, right, and center, and I don’t want to be a part of that club. I did read the conspiracies and I was like, wow, they don’t leave a stone unturned! But it’s not Taylor Swift. She definitely didn’t write the book.”
Barrymore asked Howard about the connections while wearing a similar cat backpack to the one Swift owns, which she is seen sporting in the Netflix documentary about her, “Miss Americana.”
“I am such a Swiftie. It’s insane,” Barrymore began in the video, to which Howard replies “Yep, ditto.”
Barrymore got ahead of a lot of the Taylor Swift Super Bowl buzz by calculating whether Swift would be able to attend the big football game should her beau Kansas City Chiefs center Travis Kelce make it with his team.
The full interview with Howard will air Monday. “Argylle” arrives in theaters Friday.
