Josh Charles sings Taylor Swift‘s praise. At an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallonthe 52-year-old actor gushed about Swift afterwards appears in her music video “Fortnight.”.
“She’s an incredible director,” Charles said. “My favorite director because she knows what she wants. If she has it, we’ve moved on. She knows what she wants, if she has it, she has it.”
“Let me put it this way: I was already a fan of her music, but if any of you ever get to know her, your fan base for her will just go through the roof,” he added. “She’s just such a genuine, cool and approachable person. That’s nice to see because that’s not always the case. That was really exciting.”
As Charles’ Society of Dead Poets co-star, Ethan HawkeWhen he revealed that Swift wanted her in her music video, the actor initially didn’t believe his longtime pal.
“It was a really strange thing,” Charles said. “Taylor knows Ethan’s daughter Maya [Hawke], and turned to her. The title of the album is natural The Tortured Poets Departmentand so I think it’s a little taste of that Society of Dead Poets, other tortured poets. She probably had the idea that it would be interesting for us to appear in the video.
“She reached out to Ethan, and Ethan reached out to me. Once I got over the idea that he was messing with me… When he first called me, I was like, ‘Are you kidding me right now?’ ‘Cause if you… I’m fucked right now…’ He was like, ‘This is totally serious,'” he continued. “I thought, ‘Okay.’ We talked about it and I talked to her people and it just seemed like a fun idea.
It was a project that Charles and Hawke were not allowed to tell anyone about, which posed a challenge for the men.
“We were sworn to confidentiality and signed NDAs and all that stuff… I told my wife, my dad and maybe one or two other people I knew.” [wouldn’t tell]said Charles. “I didn’t tell my children. I haven’t told my children because they are just chatterboxes. They’ll talk about it at school. Finally, right before it aired, I told my son because he was so full of hot air. He makes up so much stuff that I knew no one would believe him anyway.
In an Instagram post about the experience, Charles further discussed his music video experience.
“I don’t like keeping secrets, so this was hard. I just told my kids the other day!” he wrote alongside a picture of himself and Hawke. “Here are a few tortured old poets about to board an early flight to become pop stars for a day. I’ve been through a lot with this guy over the years, but it’s safe to say this was a day to remember.”
“We were treated with class from start to finish by Taylor and her crew,” Charles added. “What I will remember most was the laughter. There was a lot of it. Like we were 17 again.”
As for Hawke, during an appearance in The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The actor opened up about keeping his appearance a secret from his children.
“Tell my teenage daughters that I’m going to meet Taylor and everyone at school will know,” he said. “When they found out, the look on their faces was one of deep disappointment.”
He joked about his daughters saying, “Don’t take care of my dad. My father is an idiot. You should call me!”
Regardless of whether his daughters approved of his connection to Swift or not, Hawke said he and Charles had the time of their lives on the set of “Fortnight,” sharing, “We felt like the biggest rock stars in the world.”
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