Joe Alwyn, 33, who Swifties believe was edited out of a new video from the Grammy winner, opened the door a bit on their six-year relationship in an interview with The Guardian, while promoting his new film, The Brutalist.
He and the Shake It Off singer met sometime in 2016 the same year his first film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, was released.
When asked if he thought dating the hitmaker would overshadow his career, the actor answered, ‘I have tried just to focus on controlling what I can control.’
‘Right from the beginning, tried to focus on the things that are meaningful for me: friends, family, work, of course,’ he said.
‘So noise outside of that, I think I’ve done what lots of people who find themselves in the public eye do, which is just try and ignore it,’ he explained adding, ‘If you don’t, and if you let all of that other stuff in, and if it starts to affect you and your behavior, you’re living from the outside in. And then you’re pretty f-ked.’
The couple tried to keep their relationship out of the public eye as much as possible, although Swift’s fans believe the songs Gorgeous from 2017’s Reputation album and London Boy from 2019’s Lover are homages to the British actor.
Swifties seemed to start paying attention to Alwyn after it was revealed he had writing credits on the singer’s 2020 album, Folklore, which won three Grammys, and on its follow-up Evermore, which was written during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The actor who received a Grammy for his contribution to Evermore, which won Album of the Year, said he was in a different space now.
‘I have great family and friends and real things in my life; those are the things that kept me tethered to the ground,’ he declared, adding, ‘So I don’t know how else to say it, it’s… just in a different room.’
The Kinds of Kindness star said it’s time for the fans to do the same.
‘That’s something for other people to do. We’re talking about something that’s a while ago now in my life. So that’s for other people. That’s what I feel.’
Swift has certainly moved on. The singer and songwriter has been dating NFL star Travis Kelce since sometime in the summer of 2023.
The Brutalist was up for seven awards at the 2025 Golden Globes on Sunday, including Best Motion Picture, Drama and received nine Critics Choice Awards nominations.
The film was opened in limited release on December 20 in order to qualify for awards consideration.
Alwyn has two new, but interestingly related films in his queue.
He has finished work on Hamnet, based on the best-selling novel by Maggie O’Farrell, which is a fictional work centered around the death of William Shakespeare’s son, at age 11.
Alwyn will play the bard’s brother-in-law in the screen adaptation directed by Oscar winner Chloe Zhao. He will also tackle the role of Laertes in a new rendition of Hamlet, starring Riz Ahmed as the Danish prince.
