Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke recently appeared in Taylor Swift's music video, Fortnight, featuring Post Malone, which was part of her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. The actors took to social media and shared their thoughts on their cameos in the artist's track and hailed her for her work.
Josh Charles posted a picture from the sets of the music video on Instagram and mentioned that he had admired the singer for a long time.
"I’ve admired Taylor for a long time, but meeting her in person took my fandom to a whole new level," he mentioned in the caption of his post.
Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke talk about working on the Fortnight music video
Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles, who starred in 1989's cult-classic Dead Poets Society, took to Instagram to share glimpses from their time on the sets of Fortnight and spoke about their experience.
Josh Charles shared a snapshot from the Fortnight music video, which featured him and Ethan Hawke as scientists with Taylor Swift in the middle. The Dead Poets Society actor mentioned that he had "admired Taylor for a long time" and called her a "genuine, kind, approachable" person. He also stated that she was a "stellar human being" and hailed her skills as a director as well.
Ethan Hawke also shared a series of photos from the sets of the Fortnight music video with Post Malone, Taylor Swift, and Josh Charles. The final photo was a still of the two actors from the 1989 film and Hawke referenced a quote from the movie as he said:
"Todd’ & ‘Knox’ from DEAD POETS SOCIETY are now PhDs in THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. It’s quite an honor. Thank you @taylorswift for the opportunity to be in the music video for your song FORTNIGHT feat. @postmalone. carpe diem!"
Swift also spoke about working with the Dead Poets Society actors and called them the "coolest guys on earth" as she shared a tweet online.
"I’m still laughing from getting to work with the coolest guys on earth, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles (tortured poets, meet your colleagues from down the hall, the dead poets)," she wrote.
In Dead Poets Society, Charles and Hawke played schoolboys who were inspired by their charismatic English teacher, John Keating (played by Robin Williams). He encouraged them to seize the day (carpe diem) and appreciate poetry, leading to the creation of the 'Dead Poets Society.'
All about Fortnight by Taylor Swift
The Tortured Poets Department is Taylor Swift's 11th studio album, which the singer announced in her speech after she won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights. Initially issued as a single album, the second volume, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, was released as a surprise addition a few hours after the original release.
The two parts of Taylor Swift's new album contain 31 songs in total, with Fortnight being the first video released on April 20. It features the artist and Post Malone, with Dead Poets Society stars Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke making cameo appearances.
The black-and-white music video is a concoction of complex narratives, ranging from Taylor Swift connecting with Post Malone over auras emitted from their typewriters to the singer getting experimented on by two scientists (played by Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke).
The 14-time Grammy winner spoke about the music video in a social media post and explained:
"When I was writing the Fortnight music video, I wanted to show you the worlds I saw in my head that served as the backdrop for making this music. Pretty much everything in it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner of the album or another. For me, this video turned out to be the perfect visual representation of this record and the stories I tell in it."
In an earlier interview with iHeartRadio, Taylor Swift discussed the themes of the video. She mentioned that Fortnight "exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album, one of which being fatalism, longing, pining away, lost dreams." Speaking further about the album, she stated that it was a "dramatic, artistic, tragic kind of take on love and loss."