‘It wasn’t about us’ – Scott on group chat with Mescal and Alwyn that had Swifties ‘tortured’ over hit song title

Many fans thought it was about break-up from English actor

Andrew Scott has shed light on the “Tortured Man Club” group chat he had with fellow actors Joe Alwyn and Paul Mescal, which some believe inspired the title of Taylor Swift’s latest record, The Tortured Poets Department.

Speaking during the 2022 season of Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Mescal and Alwyn revealed they were in a group chat named “Tortured Man Club”, which was created by the latter’s Catherine Called Birdy co-star Scott.

Given Swift and Alwyn broke up last year, fans theorised that the album’s namewasinspiredbyherex’sgroupchat.

Addressing the rumours with Variety

in a new cover story, Dubliner Scott (47) explained how the group got its name.

“Let me tell you what that is,” the Ripley

star said. “So, Joe and Paul were about to play these tortured characters, and I had played a tortured character in Fleabag.”

Alwyn was about to star in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel Conversations with Friends,

while Mescal was preparing to take on his role in Charlotte Wells’s melancholic directorial debut, Aftersun.

“It wasn’t about our own characteristics,” Scott said, adding that the chat is no longer active. “I think there were three texts, like, ‘Hey, guys’. You know those groups that you set up, and they just collapse.”

Kildare actor Mescal, with whom Scott co-starred in All of Us Strangers, has praised his fellow Irish man, saying: “He’s a great guardian of actors, if you’re lucky enough that he admires you or has respect for you.

“He’s got an overseeing quality, in terms of understanding that good art and good actors are hard to come by.”

Swift and Alwyn were dating at the time of the group chat’s existence. They ended their six-year relationship in April last year.

Scott went on to praise The Tortured Poets Department, saying it was “sensational”.

“I texted her [Swift] yesterday to say how amazing it is,” he said. “I think she’s just a force of nature, just an extraordinary human, and this album is really amazing.”

He noted that his favourite song on the album is The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, which listeners have speculated is about The 1975’s frontman Matty Healy, whom she briefly dated after her break-up from Alwyn.

Many fans expected the album would be heavily inspired by her relationship with English actor Alwyn, but Swift took everyone by surprise as it emerged that her songs instead seemed to address her time with Healy.

Swift is now dating NFL player Travis Kelce. The pair have been travelling together throughout Europe, where the Fortnight singer is performing on her Eras tour – she has three shows in Dublin next month.

Elsewhere in the Variety interview, Scott spoke about his late mother Nora, who died unexpectedly in March. He told of the need to keep talking about her to keep her close.

“It came very suddenly to our family and it’s landed in the middle of all of this stuff. Her spirit is so alive in me in the immediate aftermath of her death,” he said.

“Her way of dealing with people was so kind, but she wasn’t very good at small talk. She connected with people in a very particular way. What I was taught was the idea of being authentically yourself.”

Scott also said he sometimes has to consider what he says about his sexuality, as he does not want to be defined by it. The term “openly gay”, for example, is something he has no time for.

“It’s wonderful to be able to talk about sexuality in an open way, but I do feel sometimes, other people – and by other people I mean straight people – don’t have to explain or talk about their sexuality every time they go to work,” he said.

“The idea that I’m being defiant by just being exactly who I am – be open about it? Why wouldn’t you be open about it? But the word ‘openly’, for me, just seems a little loaded.

“A lot of this stuff has really affected me in my own life growing up – God knows, I didn’t have a lot of gay content.

“We live in an identity-politics era. We’re separating each other more than we need to. This hysteria about your sexuality and how that is something that is only understandable to people who belong to the same tribe as you – it just doesn’t seem truthful.”

Scott also revealed more about the controversial incident at last February’s Baftas awards ceremony where he was asked about Barry Keoghan’s genitalia.

BBC reporter Colin Paterson asked Scott for his opinion on Dubliner Keoghan’s naked dance at the end of Saltburn, ending with the question: “How well do you know him?”

Scott smiled and walked off.

“It was awkward,” Scott said. “It was a little bit weird. But I got an apology from the journalist. I think it was a series of unfortunate events. And I totally accepted his apology. I wouldn’t want him to suffer any more.” (© The Independent)