Who did Taylor Swift play on The Lorax?

Taylor Swift is an artist with multifaceted interests who has experimented with many avenues besides songwriting. In addition to being a Grammy-winning singer, Swift is an award-winning short-film director and has also made cameo appearances in several movies and TV shows throughout her career.

One of the most significant roles in the The Tortured Poets Department singer's career is in the form of a voiceover gig in the animated film The Lorax, an adaptation of Dr. Seuss' 1971 children's book of the same name.

Taylor Swift plays the role of Audrey, a teenage environmentalist who longs to see a real tree in the dystopian world of the film.

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Taylor Swift's role in The Lorax explored

Taylor Swift and Zac Efron's characters in The Lorax (image via YouTube/Universl Pictures/Dr. Seuss' The Lorax - Theatrical Trailer)

Taylor Swift joined the ensemble cast containing Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Betty White, Zac Efron, Rob Riggle, and Jenny Slate in the 2012 dystopian comedy animated film The Lorax.

Directed by Chris Renaud, The Lorax tells the story of Ted Wiggins (Zac Efron) who will stop at nothing to win the love of the girl of his dreams, Audrey (Taylor Swift).

Audrey is an environmentalist who longs to see a real tree in a dystopian world created in the film where everything is artificial and a product of technological advancement. In his quest to fulfill Audrey's dream, the boy learns about the story of the Lorax, a creature who lives to protect the dystopian world.

In an interview with MTV in March 2012, Taylor Swift discussed the experience of voicing Audrey and the difference between singing and voicing a character in a studio.

"It was a completely different space that you go to in your head. You're in the studio, which I have done a lot, but it's very different when you're singing songs that you wrote and you're trying to access those emotions you felt when you wrote the song," she explained when asked about the experience of playing Audrey.

Taylor Swift and Zac Efron's characters in The Lorax (image via YouTube/Universl Pictures/Dr. Seuss' The Lorax - Theatrical Trailer)

Taylor Swift went on to explain the challenges of playing a voiceover by tapping into the emotions of an imaginary character. Moreover, she revealed that the actors recorded their parts from different places, which made it even more difficult because she had to guess the reaction of the other character and act accordingly.

"With this [voiceover], you're sitting there in a booth by yourself having conversations with no one. No one's there, we all recorded our parts in different places, so you're trying to come up with what the other characters would be saying back to you," explained Taylor.

Playing the voiceover was a completely new experience for the Blank Space singer, who adored her character and saw her as different from everyone in the film.

"She's such a daydreamer, and she cares so much about the past, which is what makes her different from everyone else in the society that she lives in. To some degree, you have to have a priority based on the past and the future as well as the present, and she cares about the trees that used to exist," she explained.

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The Lorax made it big at the box office

The Lorax topped several box office charts and earned $214.5 million in North America and an additional $136.9 million overseas, totaling $351.4 million worldwide.

The film also topped North America's box office on the opening day itself, earning a total of $17.5 million and grossing over $70 million in the first weekend. It achieved the biggest opening weekend for an Illumination Entertainment film and the second biggest for an environmental awareness film. Moreover, the film had the eighth-best debut weekend for any animated film in history.