To Taylor Swift, Guillermo del Toro is the real “Brain”.

The multi-hyphenated Grammy sweetheart praised Oscar-winning “Shape of Water” filmmaker during The Power of Women in Entertainment 2022 Hollywood Reporter 100 Q&A, revealing that she would like to trade places with del Toro for a day.

“Imagine having that imagination, that visual vocabulary, and that amazing work,” Swift said. “To have such a diverse range of storytelling, but somehow put your distinctive artistic stamp on each film.”

The “Cats” actress most recently appeared in David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam,” while del Toro’s stop-motion reimagining of “Pinocchio” is now streaming on Netflix. Swift also made her directorial debut this year with the Oscar-qualifying short “All Too Well.”

Swift’s latest album “Midnights” drew inspiration from shows like “Mad Men,” with actress-singer Zoë Kravitz co-writing two tracks. The “Red” crooner admitted earlier this year that she failed his audition for the 2012 Oscar-winning musical adaptation “Les Miserables” opposite Eddie Redmayne.

“Basically, I was up for two roles,” Swift said on “The Graham Norton Show.” “I had the look of Cosette and the vocal range of Éponine, so it was established I had been there for quite a while but not for long. I wasn’t going to get the part.

She added: “When I arrived they put me in a 19th century street urchin costume and said they were going to paint my teeth brown and I was like, ‘You’re gonna do that after meeting Eddie Redmayne, right? They made me look like death and it became a nightmare. When I met Eddie, I didn’t open my mouth to talk!

Director Tom Hooper said in 2019 that while Swift had “pretty brilliantly auditioned” for the role of Éponine, he ultimately couldn’t choose the “Love Story” singer because there was disbelief that Swift “was a girl that people would overlook”. Likewise, Swift was also refused for an extra role in “Twilight: New Moon”.

“It didn’t really sit well with him for the most flattering reason,” Hooper said. Vulture at the time. “I didn’t choose it, but I got very close to it.” Newcomer Samantha Barks has been cast in the role for which Swift – along with Broadway’s “Funny Girl” star Lea Michele, Evan Rachel Wood and Scarlett Johansson – had auditioned.

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