If you thought Taylor Swift’s involvement in the Cats movie would be limited to be transforming herself into some kind of cat-like monster, then you must not know just how much Taylor Swift cares about cat-related things! According to a story from Variety, Swift was so hyped for her role in the movie that she and original Cats creator/composer Andrew Lloyd Webber “spontaneously” wrote a song together for the film while Swift was rehearsing. Weirdly, though, the song won’t actually be sung by Swift in the movie—though she does sing in Cats.
Titled “Beautiful Ghosts,” it comes at a “narrative moment in the film” (love to see narrative moments in films) and will be performed by Francesca Hayward. Swift’s character, who is apparently named Bombalurina, will sing “Macavity The Mystery Cat” in the film and then regular human Swift will sing her own version of “Beautiful Ghosts” over the credits. The origin of this song came when film director Tom hooper and writer Lee Hall decided to expand on the character that Hayward plays for the film, but in doing so they realized she didn’t have her own song. So, Lloyd Webber started writing a new tune about weird cats and the spaceship they worship, at which point Taylor Swift came in, offered to write some lyrics for it, and then ended up working on the music part of it as well.
Of course, if you want to be a little more cynical about it (and not just give in to the unifying power of weird cats and spaceships), Variety points out that this will allow Cats to be eligible for best original song awards at the Oscars and Golden Globes and such. The rest of the songs are from the musical, so they’re not original to the film, but this means—if “Beautiful Ghosts” is good and people are repulsed by the cat-monsters—Taylor Swift could win an Oscar! For Cats! Wouldn’t that be something?