Recommendations of the Editorial team
The “Toy Story 5” VFX supervisor revealed on Friday that a “stealth version” of the animated film was created to keep Taylor Swift’s involvement a secret until this week.
Thomas Jordan told a SXSW London panel that only a “very small group” of the film’s crew knew that Swift had recorded “I Knew It, I Knew You” for “Toy Story 5” – and that press and Disney/Pixar employees saw a version of the film without Swift’s track.
“The crew that made ‘Toy Story 5’ didn’t know about it until last week,” Jordan said (according to Variety), adding that early screenings had shown a “stealth version” without “I Knew It, I Knew You.”
Swift wrote the song spontaneously
“Taylor Swift, like many of us, is a huge ‘Toy Story’ fan,” Jordan added of Swift’s involvement. “She actually saw an early version of the film – she asked to see it before it was finished, then wrote the song and asked us if we wanted it. And we said, ‘Uh, yes! Yes, we do.’ That was in February, so we’ve had to keep it a secret since then.”
“I Knew It, I Knew You,” which sees Swift return to her country roots, was announced on June 1st and released on June 5th. “I’ve always dreamed of writing for these characters that I’ve loved since I was a child – ever since I saw the first ‘Toy Story’ movie as a five-year-old,” Swift wrote on Instagram. “I fell in love with ‘Toy Story 5’ as soon as I was lucky enough to see it in its early stages and wrote this song as soon as I got home. Sometimes you just know, right?”
Swift co-wrote and produced “I Knew It, I Knew You” with longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, their first collaboration since 2024’s “The Tortured Poets Department.”
Director Stanton on kismet
“It’s incredible how much it means that Taylor wrote and recorded this song,” “Toy Story 5” director Andrew Stanton said in a statement. “Her connection to Jessie and the immediacy with which she understood what the character was going through was unmistakable. The song is so deeply rooted in ‘Toy Story’ – so much so that when I first heard it, it immediately felt like it had always been there, like a long-lost family member. It was fate.”