Actor Joe Alwyn has said he is proud of the music he and girlfriend Taylor Swift wrote together in lockdown.
The London-born star, 31, has been dating singer-songwriter Swift, 32, since at least 2017, but the pair have remained intensely private about their relationship.
Alwyn will next be seen in a BBC series adaptation of Sally Rooney’s debut novel Conversations With Friends, which airs on BBC Three and iPlayer from May 15.
He worked with Swift on her surprise eighth studio album Folklore, writing under the pseudonym William Bowery, and co-wrote a number of songs on the follow-up sister album, Evermore.
He told GQ Hype about writing songs in lockdown: “It was really the most accidental thing to happen in lockdown. It wasn’t like, ‘It’s three o’clock, it’s time to write a song!’.
“It was just messing around on a piano and singing badly and being overheard and then thinking, you know, what if we tried to get to the end of it together?”
The actor – who gained recognition after starring in 2016 war drama Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which was directed by Ang Lee and also starred Kristen Stewart – said of writing with Swift: “It was fun to do it together, and I was proud of it.
“It was nice getting such a positive reception.”
Conversations With Friends follows two Dublin college students, Frances and Bobbi, as they forge a strange and unexpected connection with married couple Melissa (Jemima Kirke) and Nick (Alwyn).
The 12-part series is being made by the producers of Normal People, the hit series based on another of Irish author Rooney’s books.
Alwyn said of Nick’s accent: “I listened to people like Andrew Scott and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and that kind of middle-class south Dublin accent.
Are you ready for this? From the makers of Normal People comes #ConversationsWithFriends. May 2022.#BBCThree in association with @hulu@josalw @jemimakirke @faberbooks
Contains Adult Themes. pic.twitter.com/x1KXpUi5Bu
— BBC Three (@bbcthree) February 8, 2022
“(Nick’s’) is quite anglicised, there was the idea that he would have been to drama school in London and he has a British wife and so maybe some of those sounds have been softened as well.”
The screen adaptation of Normal People was a huge hit and its stars – Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones – received critical acclaim.
The full GQ Hype interview with Joe Alwyn is available online.