The singer’s participation Taylor Swift36, em “Toy Story 5” was kept confidential even by part of the team involved in producing the animation. According to members of the project, Disney and Pixar even created an alternative version of the film to avoid leaks about the artist’s collaboration, responsible for the new song. “I Knew It, I Knew You”.
The song, announced last week, was written from the perspective of the character Jessie and is a rapprochement between the star and the country elements that marked the beginning of her career, combined with the pop and confessional lyrics that have become a signature of her work.
During a panel at the SXSW London Festival in the United Kingdom, visual effects supervisor Thomas Jordan revealed that only a select group of professionals were aware of Taylor’s participation. “A very small portion of the team knew,” he said.
The executive explained that they produced a version of the film without the singer’s music for internal screenings, with the aim of keeping the secret under lock and key until the official announcement.
“The team that made it didn’t know this secret until last week,” he added, according to a report published by Variety magazine.
The professional declared that the initiative came from the artist herself, who asked to watch a preliminary version of the film.
“Turns out Taylor Swift is a die-hard fan of ‘Toy Story’like many of us. She saw an early version of the film. He asked to watch it before it was finished, wrote the song and then asked if we wanted it. And we said, ‘Yes, of course we do.’ This happened in February, so we’ve had to keep it a secret since then.”
When announcing the collaboration on social media, Taylor said that working on the franchise was a longtime dream.
The singer shared a childhood video in which she appears dressed as Jessie and recalled the special connection she has with the characters.
“I’ve always dreamed of writing for these characters that I love since I was five years old, when I watched the first ‘Toy Story’. I wrote this song as soon as I got home after the screening. Sometimes you just know, don’t you?”
Taylor also said she believes the experience was a reunion with her own musical origins.
“Writing this song was like going in a new musical direction and coming home at the same time. Creating something for Jessie was an unprecedented challenge, but it also felt instinctive from the beginning. And being a kid ‘Toy Story’ from the age of five until today is an adventure that I intend to continue living, to infinity and beyond”, she said, citing the expression of the character Buzz Lightyear.
The film opens in Brazilian cinemas on June 18but there are early sessions from the 17th.
