Taylor Swift Recalls Les Misérables Screen Test

Taylor Swift had a chance to be cast in the Les Misérables movie — but things didn’t quite go according to plan.

Back in 2012, Taylor auditioned for the film and was up for the part of either Cosette or Éponine.

“I think it had been established I had more of the look of Cosette and the range vocally of Éponine, so it was established I was there for a good time, not a long time. I wasn’t going to get the role,” Taylor said on The Graham Norton Show.

Despite the casting dilemma, she was still offered the chance to go to London to do a screen test with Eddie Redmayne, who had been cast as Marius Pontmercy.

“They were like, ‘Do you want to come to London for one last screen test? And you’ll get to screen test with Eddie Redmayne.’ I’m like, ‘This seems like an experience I want to have in my life.’ [Eddie’s] one of my favorite actors. And I was like, ‘Yeah I’ll go to London,'” Taylor explained.

Her meeting with Eddie wasn’t what she had imagined though, as the crew put her in a “full 19th-century street urchin” costume, complete with painted-on brown teeth.

“I was like, ‘You are going to do that after I meet Eddie Redmayne, right?'” she shared. “I was like, ‘This has immediately become a nightmare for me.'”

Taylor says she didn’t even open her mouth to speak when she met Eddie — and it turns out he actually didn’t want to open his mouth either…because he had bad breath!

“My overwhelming memory is that I had just been to Pizza Express before and I had some garlic dough balls… It was so weird because Taylor was dressed fully as Éponine, and I was like in my track suit,” Eddie shared.

He continued, “I thought we would just be singing off each other… And they had us on the floor singing sweet nothings to each other, and all I knew is that I just had garlic breath. I was trying to show emotion while also at the same time not to punish you!”