Taylor Swift’s ex-boyfriend has moved on with his life and career following his breakup with the music superstar in 2023, and he hopes his and her fans do too.
Joe Alwyn, 33, who Swifties believe was edited out of the Grammy winner’s new video, opened the door a little on their six-year relationship in an interview with the guardianwhile promoting his new film, The Brutalist.
He and the Shake It Off singer met in 2016, the same year his first film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, was released.
When asked if he thought dating the hitmaker would overshadow his career, the actor responded: “I’ve tried to focus on controlling what I can control.”
“From the beginning I tried to focus on the things that are meaningful to me: friends, family, work, of course,” he said.
“So, other than that, I think I’ve done what a lot of people who are in the public eye do, which is just try to ignore it,” he explained, adding: “If you don’t and if you let all those other things inside, and if it starts to affect you and your behavior, you’re living from the outside in. And then you’re pretty screwed.’
Joe Alwyn, 33, said he has “moved on” after his 2023 split from Taylor Swift, 35, and hopes “other people” do too in an interview with The Guardian (pictured in Los Angeles in October 2024).
The couple tried to keep their relationship out of the public eye as much as possible, although Swift fans believe the songs Gorgeous from 2017’s album Reputation and London Boy from 2019’s Lover are tributes to the British actor.
Swifties appeared to start taking notice of Alwyn after it was revealed that he had writing credits on the singer’s 2020 album Folklore, which won three Grammy Awards, and its follow-up Evermore, which was written during the Covid lockdown. 19.
The actor who received a Grammy for his contribution to Evermore, which won Album of the Year, said he was now in a different space.
‘I have a great family and friends and real things in my life; those are the things that kept me tied to the ground,’ he declared, adding, ‘So I don’t know how else to say it, it’s… just in a different room.’
The Kinds of Kindness star said it’s time for fans to do the same.
‘That’s something other people can do. We are talking about something that has been in my life for some time now. So that’s for other people. That’s what I feel.’
Swift has certainly moved on. The singer and songwriter has been dating NFL star Travis Kelce since the summer of 2023.
The Brutalist was up for seven awards at the 2025 Golden Globes on Sunday, including Best Drama Motion Picture, and received nine Critics Choice Awards nominations.
The Grammy winner and the actor met sometime in 2016 and were together for more than six years before going their separate ways in 2023 (pictured in New York City in October 2019).
“That’s something other people can do,” she said of leaving the relationship. ‘We’re talking about something that happened a while ago in my life. So that’s for other people. That’s what I feel’ (Photographed in London in February 2019
Alwyn currently stars in The Brutalist with Oscar winner Adrien Brody. The film has received seven Golden Globe nominations and nine Critics Choice Awards nominations.
The film was released in limited release on December 20 to qualify for awards consideration.
Alwyn has two new, but curiously related, movies on his slate.
He has completed work on Hamnet, based on the best-selling novel by Maggie O’Farrell, which is a work of fiction centered on the death of William Shakespeare’s son, at age 11.
Alwyn will play the bard’s brother-in-law in the film adaptation directed by Oscar winner Chloe Zhao. He will also take on the role of Laertes in a new interpretation of Hamlet, starring Riz Ahmed as the Danish prince.