Taylor Swift just said something about ‘Toy Story 5′ that reframes the whole collaboration, and it hits differently than a typical celebrity movie tie-in.
The ‘Toy Story‘ franchise has been emotionally wrecking audiences since 1995. It raised a generation on lessons about loyalty, letting go, and what it means to love something even when it no longer needs you. For a lot of kids who grew up in the 90s, those films were not just entertainment. They were formative. So when Pixar announced a fifth installment tackling the tension between classic toys and modern technology, the stakes for longtime fans were already sky-high.
Taylor Swift on Writing “I Knew It, I Knew You” for Toy Story 5
Now Swift has opened up about what this project actually means to her on a personal level, and the answer is more sincere than most people might have expected. In a recent interview with On The Red Carpet, she reflected on the franchise’s place in her life with a simple, loaded line: “It’s raised so many kids just like me.”
That is not the language of a celebrity lending their name to a soundtrack. That is someone talking about a piece of their childhood. Swift had already made her love of the franchise clear when she announced the collaboration on June 1, writing on social media that she had “always dreamed of getting to write for these characters” since watching the original film as a five-year-old. After being shown an early cut of Toy Story 5, she wrote the song the same night she got home from the screening.
The track, titled I Knew It, I Knew You, was co-written and produced with her longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff, making it their first joint project since The Tortured Poets Department. Swift said they wrote it “with so much adoration for these characters that made us laugh and helped us learn lessons and think outside the backyard throughout our childhoods.“
Director Andrew Stanton said her connection to Jessie, the film’s emotional core, was immediate and undeniable. “It’s incredible just how meaningful it’s been having Taylor write and perform this song,” she said. “Her connection to Jessie and the immediate way she understood what the character was going through was undeniable.“
The film brings back the full core cast, with Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, and Joan Cusack as Jessie, alongside newcomers including Greta Lee as Lilypad, a frog-shaped smart tablet who disrupts the gang’s world. Bad Bunny also joins the cast, voicing a character called Pizza with Sunglasses.
‘Toy Story 5‘ opens exclusively in theaters on June 19.
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