
TAS Rights ManagementFor her latest video, “The Man,” Taylor Swift hired special effects wizard Bill Corso — the same guy who turned her into a zombie for her “Look What You Made Me Do” video — to transform her into a toxic male. But according to Corso, that male is not modeled after any of Taylor’s exes.
In the video, Taylor plays a dark-haired, bearded guy called “Tyler Swift,” who parties with bikini-clad girls, throws temper tantrums, manspreads and relieves himself in public. Some fans believe that “Tyler” looks very much like Taylor’s former boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal, but Corso tells ELLE that’s not intentional.
“I think she feels like someone different in every shot of the video,” Corso says. “So, I totally understand how people would draw conclusions.”
Corso actually offered Taylor two options to become Tyler: He could either be blond or dark-haired. Corso tells ELLE that Taylor went dark because she wanted to be someone “as far removed from [her]” as possible.
According to Corso, the process required ten prosthetic pieces — neck, cheeks, chin, upper and lower lips, forehead, ear lobes, nose, and hands with separate nails for each finger — to be crafted in just two-and-a-half weeks, which was, he says, “crazy fast.”
How fast? By comparison, ELLE reports that it took seven weeks to create the eight prosthetic pieces used to turn Charlize Theron into Megyn Kelly for the movie Bombshell.
After applying the prosthetics, Taylor’s beard, mustache, eyebrows, wig, and contact lenses were applied separately. The whole thing took five hours. How much did it cost? “Not cheap,” says Corso.
But it was all worth it to hear Taylor’s reaction — Corso says she was “thrilled.”
“I think she felt it was exactly what she hoped it would be,” he says.
(Video contains uncensored profanity.)
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