Taylor Lautner and his wife Tay Lautner have nothing but nice things to say about working with Taylor Swift on her recent “I Can See You” music video. In a new episode of the couple’s podcast, The Squeeze, the pair described keeping the collaboration a secret ahead of its premiere earlier this month.
“We’ve known how freaking awesome the video is for a while now, so I was just stoked for everybody to see it and just see the genius of blonde girl Taylor because she is truly unbelievable,” Lautner said on the episode, titled “Tay & Tay Lautner: Taylor’s Version.” “She can do it all. Honestly, the most impressive thing about her is that she is such a genius and she does do it all but you would never think so just talking to her. She’s the most humble person I’ve ever encountered.”
Tay added that being on set for the music video was “literally bigger than any secret I’ll ever have.” She noted of Swift, “She is collaborative, which I’ve never described anyone. She doesn’t need to be collaborative. She is a mastermind.”
Elsewhere in the episode, the couple got candid on their relationship with Swift, who dated Lautner in 2009. Lautner described introducing his ex-girlfriend to his now-wife as “great.” “I know on paper it sounds like a tough situation,” he noted. “But I not once was ever worried about it.” They also shared what it was like going onstage at The Eras Tour in Kansas City, where Swift premiered the video. The actor said appearing at the tour was “one of the coolest experiences.”
“I Can See You” is one of the “From the Vault” songs included on Swift’s newly rerecorded 2010 third studio LP. She wrote and directed the video for the track herself, and tapped Lautner and actress Joey King to star in it.
In the clip, Lautner and King are seen in a museum on a mission to rescue Swift from a vault, where she is trapped along with her prize possession — her framed cover art of Speak Now. The two navigate Mission: Impossible-like scenes, with Presley Cash serving as their behind-the-scenes comms director, complete with tricky lasers and fight scenes against those who try to prevent them from absconding with what is rightfully Swift’s. The clever clip is of course a metaphor for her taking back her art from her former record label Big Machine, whose sale of her master recordings spurred her to rerecord her entire catalog before Lover.
Enlisting Lautner, King, and Presley had extra meaning, as Swift noted on Twitter.
“WELL. SO. I’ve been counting down for months and finally the ‘I Can See You’ video is out. I wrote this video treatment over a year ago and really wanted to play out symbolically how it’s felt for me to have the fans helping me reclaim my music. I had my heart set on @JoeyKing, Taylor Lautner and @IAmPresleyCash starring in it,” she wrote. “Joey and Presley had been in the video for ‘Mean’ when they were 9 and 13 and they are back and so ridiculously bad ass!!”
She added of Lautner and his wife, “Taytay is INCREDIBLE in this (didn’t have a stunt double!) and shout out to Tay Lautner for being so awesome to hang with on set,” she added. “The tale of 3 Taylors I always wanted to direct fight scene/a heist storyline and had the most incredible time plotting this out with my amazing DP Jonathan Sela. So proud of this one.”