Taylor Swift Feels Trippy on ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ Set: Behind-the-Scenes
Taylor Swift gave it her all during the filming of her record-breaking music video for “Look What You Made Me Do,” and in newly released behind-the-scenes footage, the singer seems to delight in seeing her former selves at each other’s throats.
In the video, posted Wednesday, Swift and dozens of her body doubles mill around on set, where a series of green screen blocks are set before a larger green screen backdrop in preparation for filming the final “Taylor mountain” scene.
“OK, this is the trippiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” she says at the start of the video as stand-ins with long blond hair and dressed in an array of her iconic outfits gather before the cameras. “Seeing all of them together is the weirdest feeling, but it’s awesome. It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s the phase I went through when I was 16 but a girl is wearing it who looks just like me.'”
“We are all creating this pile of people who are trying to get to the top,” she continued. “All of whom happen to be my former selves, which all these girls are wonderful to do that.”
Swift’s video, which debuted with a record-breaking 43.2 million views on YouTube in August, pays homage to the singer’s past personas, and pits them against each other in a seemingly cathartic free-for-all.
“Ring master and circus girl should totally be fighting because she has a hat,” she tells director Joseph Kahn at one point, adding, “Can I hit her in the face with my ’13’? Cool.”
Swift, dressed as a Red-era Taylor, screams “Get out of my house!” at one point to a body double dressed as a Fearless-era Taylor. “I’m not sure where that came from,” she says after wrapping the scene. “I have no experience with home invasion, but, you know, you just gotta follow the muse.”
Quips Kahn, who also directed Swift’s “Bad Blood” and “Blank Space,” “You’re doing a bang-up job playing yourself.”
At one point in the clip, Swift also shows off her “falling techniques,” captured while she lies on her back on an elevated platform in front of a green screen, moves she names things like “kitten strangle fight” and “sea anemone.”
“That’s the most popular one,” she says of “sea anemone.” “That’s the one the kids like the most. Sea anemone … tentacles.”
“Look What You Made Me Do” is the first single off Swift’s upcoming album, Reputation, due out Nov. 10th.
Taylor Swift‘s talked-about music video is filled with symbolic references, and eagle-eyed fans are eagerly decoding its hidden meanings. Watch here.