Actor Joe Alwyn (Royal Tunbridge Wells, United Kingdom, 33 years old) is one of the protagonists of Kinds of Kindness, the new film by Yorgos Lánthimos that premieres on June 28 in Spain. The film, in which he shares the screen with stars of the stature of Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons and Hunter Schafer, is receiving very favorable reviews and the performers, in full promotion, are giving away good headlines. This is what Alwyn himself has done, although in his case, the headlines go beyond his new film. What has attracted attention in his last interview with The Times is that, for the first time since they broke up in April 2023, he has spoken out about his relationship with Taylor Swift. “I understand people’s curiosity,” he assured the British media a year after breaking up with the singer after more than six years of dating.
Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, released last April, seems to nod to a WhatsApp group called The Tortured Man Club, which Alwyn shared with his professional colleagues Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott. Those who have followed his story think that the song So Long, London It’s about their separation. “Have you heard the album?” the interviewer asks. “This is not a direct answer to your question, but just a thought that I want to talk about…”, anticipates the discreet actor, knowing that it is impossible not to be asked about his media ex. “I hope each and every one can empathize and understand the difficulties that come with the end of a long, loving, fully committed relationship of over six and a half years. That’s a difficult thing to navigate. What is unusual and abnormal in this situation is that, a week later, it is suddenly public knowledge and the outside world can intervene,” he laments in the interview.
Alwyn has been, to date, the singer’s longest boyfriend. They met in 2016, supposedly at the Met Gala in New York. In an interview for the British edition of the magazine Vogue In 2018, when they had been together for two years, the actor opened up about seeking privacy in their relationship. Being with Swift catapulted him to fame above his work, being at first baptized as “Taylor’s bae.” or “Taylor’s sweetheart,” something that the performer, who was beginning to make a name for himself in the industry, did not want to allow. So their relationship was always very discreet, with few joint appearances in public, very different from the one the singer now has with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce. “You have something very real suddenly thrown into a very unreal space: the tabloids, social networks, the press… Where it is then dissected, speculated, deformed until it is unrecognizable. And the truth is that, on this last point, there will always be a gap between what is known and what is said. “I’ve made peace with that,” Alwyn explains to The Times.
A few years ago, and to get away from the American media, Swift went to London for a while with the intention of living her romance with the British performer more quietly. Hence the song So Long, London, in which she talks about how alone and insecure she felt in a relationship, about how she waited in vain for someone to ask her to marry him, and even leaves a possible infidelity in the air, it seems like a clear reference to Alwyn. “As you all know, together, both of us, mutually, we decided to keep the most private details of our relationship private. It was never something that could be commodified and I see no reason to change that now,” she tells the interviewer. Regarding the content of her ex-partner’s songs, she simply clarifies: “Well, as I said, there will always be a gap between what is known and what is said.”
For the rest, he acknowledges that he feels “lucky to be in a great place” in his life, professionally and personally. “I feel very good,” he guarantees. The interviewer can’t help but ask him if she is still in contact with the artist and he, as expected, gives her the slip. “I’m sure you can appreciate, given the level of noise and scrutiny about my past relationship, why I wouldn’t want to open the door to things like that right now,” she politely replies.
For more than six years as Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Alwyn was scrutinized by the army of swifties and the tabloid press, something he now avoids at all costs. “I try to lower that volume. Obviously, I was aware of it and I think that mistreating someone, whether in person or behind the anonymity of a keyboard, is shameful,” she acknowledges. She has participated in great films such as The favourite either Mary, Queen of Scots, but what he wants is to combine his work with a quiet life. That’s why his friends still belong to the same group he grew up with in Tufnell Park, a district north of the British capital. “I have brilliant, authentic people in my life,” he celebrates, “I try to live in reality and away from the kind of online noise of Twitter, or wherever it comes from, and I try to stay in the moment.” He lives in London and has no intention of moving to Hollywood. He says he likes to walk and believes that driving everywhere “takes some of the spontaneity out of the day.”
