Let’s just call 2020 the year of Taylor Swift and be done with it.

We may only be three months into the year, but Swift is absolutely killing it. In January, her Netflix documentary Miss Americana (directed by the incredible Lana Wilson) was widely praised for its intimate and honest look at the singer’s life. And at the end of last month, her music video for The Man was also celebrated for its incredible takedown of everyday sexism. 

But all of that success hasn’t come without some serious hard work – as we see in the new behind the scenes video for the aforementioned music video, where we see Swift putting in the hours to transform into the intensely unlikeable ‘man’ character.

If you haven’t seen the video yet, you’re probably wondering what on earth we’re talking about. Essentially, the video depicts a ‘man’ going about his day-to-day life, engaging in every sexist behaviour you can imagine. From manspreading on public transport to sleeping with whoever he wants without any repercussions, the video’s central character embodies all the worst parts of the patriarchy.

However, the video doesn’t stop there. As the final shot fades to dark, we learn that it was Swift herself playing the ‘man’ – underneath tonnes of prosthetic makeup and clothes. It’s a seriously mind-boggling thing to see: check it out for yourself below. 

In the new behind the scenes video, aptly titled “Becoming The Man”, we see all the work Swift put in to portraying her character. After dropping the bombshell that it took an incredible five hours (five hours?!) to get into the hair and makeup every day, we learn that Swift even hired a movement coach to get everything looking exactly right.

“I just need to never ever make movements that look like a girl,” she tells movement coach Stephen Galloway in one of the clip.

“I was so stoked to have a movement coach help me with things,” she explains. “Like, I never thought about how men walk. It’s just never something that’s interested me before – but they walk differently than we do.”

Throughout the video, we see Swift consult her team of movement coaches to make sure she was nailing a number of different actions, including how to smoke a cigar and how to look at women.

“How do you check somebody out?” she asks one of her coaches. “You check out their boobs and then their butt? Butt and then boobs and then back to butt? Okay cool.”

To add to all the amazing moments throughout the video, the clip concludes with the words “no men were harmed in the making of this video” pasted across the screen.

This video is just another sign of Swift’s changing public persona, away from the “good girl” narrative she said was forced upon her in the earlier years of her career, when she relied on the opinions of others for validation.

“A nice girl doesn’t force her opinions on people,” Swift says in the Miss Americana documentary. “A nice girl smiles and waves and says thank you. A nice girl doesn’t make people uncomfortable with her views. I was so obsessed with not getting in trouble that I’m just not going to do anything that anyone can say something about.”

One thing’s for sure: Swift is no longer concerned what people think of her speaking her truth. 

Image: Getty