Four months ago, Taylor Swift was on UK talk show The Graham Norton Show as part of a celebrity panel with Domhnall Gleeson, Jodie Turner-Smith, Greta Lee, Cillian Murphy, and Lewis Capaldi. All of them, Norton included, are in Swift's new video for "Opalite," the next single from her album The Life Of A Showgirl. During the show, Swift got the idea to cast all these celebs in a video together after Murphy joked about Gleeson's dancing and Gleeson quipped that he's hoping to be in one of Swift's music videos.
Swift explains:
My favorite part about writing is that first spark of an idea. It can happen at any time, for any reason. The idea for the Opalite music video crash landed into my imagination when I was doing promo for The Life of a Showgirl. I was a guest on one of my favorite shows, @TheGrahamNortonShowOfficial. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a UK late night show where Graham Norton (the insanely charismatic and lovable host) invites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it’s a dinner party. They even serve wine. Anyway. I remember thinking I got ridiculously lucky with the group I was paired with. Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, @JodieSmith, and @LewisCapaldi. All people whose work I’ve admired from afar. When we were all talking during the broadcast, Domhnall made a light hearted joke about wanting to be in one of my music videos. He’s Irish! He was joking! Except that in that moment during the interview, I was instantly struck with an idea. And so a week later he received an email script I’d written for the Opalite video, where he was playing the starring role. I had this thought that it would be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, could be a part of it too. Like a school group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory. To my delight, everyone from the show made the effort to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video. You might even recognize some friendly faces from The Eras Tour. I got to work with one of my favorite people in the world, @rpstam, again! I had more fun than I ever imagined - Made new friends, metaphors, and fashion choices. It was an absolute thrill to create this story and these characters. Shot on film. The Opalite video is out now on Spotify & Apple Music.
The "Opalite" video is supposedly set in the '90s, but it looks pretty '80s to me, so I guess it's the early '90s? Swift plays a lonely woman who starts a relationship with a rock she picked up at the park. We later meet Gleeson's character, who is dating a cactus. Eventually, the two try Opalite, a spray that is being marketed as a cure-all. Gleeson sprays his cactus, and Swift sprays herself, which leads to the plant disappearing and Swift materializing in Gleeson's living room. They strike up a romance and manage to avoid Norton's character, who is offering free samples of Nope-alite, which apparently reverses the effects of Opalite. Then, they compete in a dance competition together. The rock and the cactus get married.
Lee plays a rock star on MTV, Turner-Smith plays a TV aerobics instructor, Capaldi is a photographer who oversees a couples shoot for Swift and Gleeson, and Murphy does the voice-over on Opalite ads plus appears in mural form later on.
Notably, this video is exclusive to Spotify and Apple Music and is not on YouTube. Could this be because Billboard de-prioritized YouTube streams in their chart formula, which led to YouTube ceasing to provide Billboard with data? Swift hasn't said so, but she once kept her new music off streaming services to juice sales figures, so it would not be the first time she's used platform exclusivity strategically. "Opalite" already reached #2 on the Hot 100 without getting a promo push, so it will almost certainly now succeed "The Fate Of Ophelia" to become her next #1.
Check out the video below via Apple Music or at Spotify.
