Taylor Swift Recalls ‘Nightmare’ Screen Test for ‘Les Misérables’ Film: ‘They Made Me Look Like Death’

“I wasn’t going to get the role,” Taylor Swift said on The Graham Norton Show, recalling her audition for the 2012 Les Misérables movie

Taylor Swift says she knew in advance she wasn’t getting a role in the 2012 Les Misérables movie.

On Friday’s episode of BBC One’s The Graham Norton Show, the singer — who just released her new album Midnights last week — recalled her screen test for Tom Hooper’s film adaptation of the iconic stage musical, revealing that she knew going in it wasn’t going to work out.

“Basically I was up for two roles,” Swift, 32, explained to Norton, pointing to the two love-struck heroines first introduced in Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel of the same name. “I had the look of Cosette and the range vocally of Éponine, so it was established I was there for a good time but not for a long time. I wasn’t going to get the role.”

Les Mis star Eddie Redmayne also appeared on the comedic Friday night talk show. At the time Swift was in casting talks for Éponine, the 40-year-old actor had already nabbed the role of Marius, the suitor who falls for Cosette, much to Éponine’s heartache.

Asked to go to London to do a screen test with him, Swift told Norton she jumped at the chance despite knowing she wouldn’t get the part, calling the Oscar winner one of her “favorite” actors. “This isn’t an experience I am going to get again in my life,” she remembered saying to herself about the opportunity.

But that excitement didn’t last long. “When I got there they put me in full 19th Century street urchin costume and told me they were going to paint my teeth brown and I was like, ‘You are going to do that after I meet Eddie Redmayne right?’ ” she joked.

They didn’t. “They made me look like death and it became a nightmare,” Swift said of her panicked situation. “When I met Eddie I didn’t open my mouth to speak!”

It turns out that the Fantastic Beasts actor had his own embarrassment over the situation and was also a bit distracted. “I thought we would just be singing off each other — I didn’t know we would be in each other’s arms,” he said of the more-intimate-than-expected-test.

“My overriding memory of it is that I had pizza and garlic dough balls beforehand and all I could think about was my garlic breath while Taylor was dying in my arms and I was trying to show emotion,” he added.

Swift — as well as Lea Michele, Evan Rachel Wood and Scarlett Johansson, who also auditioned — wound up losing the role of Éponine to then-newcomer Samantha Barks.

Hooper said in 2019 that he ultimately didn’t believe Swift fit the character of an impoverished girl who gets overlooked.

“She rather brilliantly auditioned for Éponine. I didn’t cast her, but I got very close to it,” Hooper, 47, told Vulture. “Ultimately, I couldn’t quite believe Taylor Swift was a girl people would overlook. So it didn’t quite feel right for her for the most flattering reason.”

The good news is that Swift’s screen test with Hooper led her to scoring the role of Bombalurina in his 2019 film adaptation of Cats.

“I knew she was curious to work on a musical,” Hooper said to Vulture. “When [Cats] came up, I wrote to her and just said, ‘Would you like to meet? Would you like to see the world I’m creating?’ And I did a presentation. Eve Stewart had these wonderful paintings she did of the world. I had a ten-second clip of a dancer with fur, lifelike. That was my pitch. She loved it and was very gracious and really supportive from then on.”

Swift even collaborated with legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber on a new tune for the film called “Beautiful Ghosts.” It later earned her a Golden Globe nomination for best original song.

Now, the Amsterdam actress is shifting back to music, dropping Midnights — which upon its release earned the title of the most-streamed album in a single day in Spotify’s history.

“I am thrilled,” Swift said on The Graham Norton Show, sharing her reaction to the response she has received for her latest record. “But, I do think it’s a little accusatory when people say I broke Spotify. It was my gorgeous fans that broke Spotify!”

As far as an upcoming tour? The Grammy winner reassured fans that it will be “sometimes soonish.”

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