Fans Have Mixed Reactions to the Taylor Swift Movie News (Particularly Its Problematic Director)

Taylor Swift mostly sticks to music, but once in awhile, she takes a bit of a foray into acting—she’s starred in the movies Valentine’s Day and the CGI-tastic Cats, and let’s not forget her appearance on New Girl when she interrupted Cece’s wedding. But now, it sounds like Swift is taking a page out of boyfriend Joe Alwyn’s book: She’s taking on a period piece next.

Swift has signed on to star in a David O. Russell movie, alongside Margot Robbie, Christian Bale, and Rami Malek.

That’s just scratching the surface of the cast, though: According to The Hollywood Reporter, John David Washington, Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Michael Shannon also star.

So far, the details about the movie are pretty hush-hush, and Swift hasn’t mentioned anything about it herself…and neither has anyone else, really. In fact, THR is reporting that the movie is actually already done filming, which means all these stars definitely know how to keep a secret.

Swift fans on Twitter are mostly pumped about this development, though.

But while many Swifties are excited at the idea of the “Evermore” singer finding her way back to the silver screen, others are hesitant to cheer for her appearing in one of Russell’s films, after years of allegations of assault and abuse have been lodged against him. The Daily Beast put together a complete history of Russell’s allegations back in 2017, and it includes everything from an all-out fight between him and George Clooney on set in the ’90s to him screaming at Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees in the early 2000s. Russell’s transgender niece even filed a police report a decade ago, accusing him of groping her, according to TMZ.

With Swift’s casting, these allegations—which largely have been discussed and then ignored—are being brought up again. This all has fans asking why Swift opted to sign on for one of Russell’s films when she could probably work with any director she wanted. It also, frankly, begs the question why someone who has so many complaints against him is still working in Hollywood, but that’s a whole other issue.

So far, there’s no title for this project—and no release date. But now that the news that Swift is attached is out, we’ll probably get more details soon.