Six years ago, Joe Alwyn was a little-known actor who had only appeared in a handful of independent films.
But thanks to his relationship with Taylor Swift, the Conversations with Friends star, 32, won a new legion of fans – in the form of her ‘Swifties’.
Earlier this week, Entertainment Tonight left fans devastated when they reported that the fiercely private couple – who are believed to have been together since 2017 – have called time on their romance.
The publication reports that the pop star – who is currently touring the US with her Eras show – and the UK actor allegedly had an amicable split that was ‘not dramatic.‘
Over the course of their relationship, the 11-time Grammy Award-winning singer, 33, and the Conversations with Friends actor were pictured together a handful of times – usually hiding hoods or sneaking in back entrances to exclusive restaurants and award ceremonies.
Although the pair have yet to publicly confirm or deny the split, fans have insisted they have worked out the reason behind the alleged break-up by looking at clues from her Eras tour.
What’s more, Taylor gave fans a rare glimpse into their romance in her latest album Midnights last year – gushing that all Joe has ever wanted from her is ‘sweet nothing‘.
As well as making a name for himself in cult movies The Favourite and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Joe has also co-written songs on Taylor’s last three albums under the pseudonym William Bowery.
Here FEMAIL looks back at how the camera-shy Bristol student went from a little-known actor to one of Hollywood’s hottest leading men as well as Taylor Swift’s musical muse.
Shy child with ‘secret’ love of acting and low-key student
The great-grandson of composer William Alwyn, Joe has admitted in several interviews that he always wanted to pursue acting but was a shy child.
‘I wasn’t one of those kids who get up on the table and dance at a young age,’ he told Vogue in 2016. ‘But I always wanted to be an actor. I just never told anybody—I kept it a secret.’
However, Joe was exposed to the arts at a young age as his father Richard was a documentary maker.
He previously told Hero magazine: ‘I’d always grown up with him showing me films and documentaries, and my mum had always taken me to the theatre, so I’ve seen a lot of it and wanted to be involved in it in some capacity.
‘In terms of acting, it was always quite a private thing that I knew I wanted to do but didn’t necessarily speak about for a while. I got more and more into it throughout school but I was never in all the school plays, I studied it but it was kind of a secret thing that I thought I could do and that I wanted to do, but didn’t quite know how.’
In 2009, the then 18-year-old – who had been a member of the National Youth Theatre – left home in North London to study English Literature and Theatre at Bristol University.
In a resurfaced photo from his Bristol years, Joe looks like any other normal student of the time and is seen happily enjoying a lunch break by the city’s famous Clifton Suspension bridge.
During his time at university, Joe took two student productions to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and became even more determined to make it as an actor.
After three rejections from other drama schools, the star was granted a place at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in 2012.
The intense role that changed everything
Joe was still studying when he bagged his first major film role as the lead in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.
He told Vogue in 2016: ‘Four weeks earlier, I’d been in drama school.
As they’ve kept their relationship largely under wraps, it’s unclear exactly when Joe and Taylor started dating. However, the pair both attended the 2016 Met Gala
‘Now I was in Atlanta, where every single scene was shot from my point of view and I was working from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night. There was no escape. I loved it.’
The 2016 war drama – which also starred Kristen Stewart and Vin Diesel – started opening doors for Joe.
Later that year, the exciting young actor bagged an invite to the exclusive MET Gala in New York, which was also attended by his future girlfriend Taylor Swift.
Catapulted to stardom through Taylor romance
As they kept their relationship largely under wraps, it’s unclear exactly when Joe and Taylor started dating.
But when she attended the MET Gala, the songstress is believed to have still been dating fellow British actor Tom Hiddleston.
In her 2017 hit song Gorgeous, Taylor hinted at being unfaithful to the star – who is 10 years her senior.
‘I got a boyfriend, he’s older than us,’ she sings. ‘He’s in the club doing, I don’t know what.’
After the pair were first spotted together in 2017, Joe shut down an interviewer who asked about his relationship.
‘Someone’s private life is, by definition, private,’ he told GQ. ‘No one is obliged to share their personal life.’
But in a December 2019 interview with the Sunday Times, the actor admitted that he enjoyed being Taylor’s musical muse.
When quizzed about whether being the subject of some of Taylor’s work bothers him, Joe said: ‘No, not at all. No. It’s flattering.’
What’s more, the actor appeared in Taylor’s 2020 Miss Americana Netflix documentary and was seen cheering her on from the side of one of her tour shows.
After finishing her Reputation show, the star rushed off stage to hug her other half – after miming ‘I love you’ at home during her performance of Call It What You Want.
Elsewhere in the documentary, Taylor explained why she wanted to take a different approach with their relationship – in comparison to her high-profile relationships with Harry Styles, Tom Hiddleston and Joe Jonas.
She said: ‘I was falling in love with someone who had a really wonderfully normal, balanced, grounded life and we decided together that we wanted our relationship to be private.’
However, that doesn’t stand in the way of Taylor making plain reference to the leading man in her life in her music.
In her 2019 album Lover, the star penned the pop single London Boy – acknowledging that the ‘rumours are true’ and that she ‘loves the English’.
Sexy Starring Role in Conversations with Friends
In 2018, Joe bagged a supporting role in the critically acclaimed period black comedy The Favourite alongside Olivia Colman and Emma Stone.
But his highest profile performance to date was the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestseller Conversations with Friends.
The hit novel and subsequent TV drama follows mysterious, sexy married couple, Nick and Melissa, and their unusual attraction to two younger women, Frances and Bobbi.
Discussing the intimate scenes, Joe told the Radio Times last year: ‘There’s never [a sex scene] for the sake of gratuity. Hopefully each has a slightly different feeling or meaning to it.’
What’s more, Joe’s co-star Alison Oliver told The Times that Taylor was ‘totally cool’ and understood that the scenes were ‘all part of the story’.
In the thriller Stars at Noon, Joe starred opposite Margaret Qualley – playing lovers who get entangled in a mysterious yet dangerous escapade in Nicaragua.
A trailer for the film shows Trish (Qualley), a journalist, meeting Daniel (Alwyn) at a bar before getting inadvertently caught up in his risky line of work.
And while his sex scenes might appear deeply passionate on camera, Joe previously joked that filming them couldn’t be any less sexy.
Speaking to The Guardian, the bashful actor admitted: ‘They’re essentially choreographed. So they’re like fight scenes. They’re quite mechanical.
‘And obviously they’re weird, funny, strange things to do with your friends. […] There’s 10 crew members around, and it’s freezing cold or boiling hot, it just takes all the sexiness out of it.’
Secret songwriter and Taylor’s muse
In November 2020, Taylor confirmed her fan base’s long-held suspicion that William Bowery – a mystery co-writer on two songs on her album Folklore – was in fact Joe.
Chatting with her co-collaborators Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner during the filming of her Long Pond Studio Sessions, the star said: ‘So, William Bowery is Joe…as we know.
‘Joe plays piano beautifully and he’s always just playing and making things up and kind of creating things. And [the song] “exile” was crazy because Joe had written that entire piano part.
‘He was singing the Bon Iver part, the “I can see you standing honey, with his arms around your body, laughing but the joke’s not funny at all.” He was just singing it. And I was entranced and asked if we could keep writing that one.’
Despite letting the cat out of the bag, Taylor and Joe have continued to use his pseudonym for his song-writing credits – even on her new album Midnight.
Since 2020, Joe has co-written six songs with Taylor – including Betty, Exile, Champagne Problems and Coney Island.
The pair penned the album’s most personal song Sweet Nothing together – which painted a heartwarming picture of their life together.
Opening about the pressure she feels as an artist, the star wrote: ‘And the voices that implore, “You should be doing more”. To you, I can admit that I’m just too soft for all of it.’
Joe’s post-Taylor Era
News of Taylor and Joe’s split broke as the actor filmed his new movie And – opposite his The Favourite co-star Emma Stone.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, filming for the movie began in New Orleans in September 2022 – but details of the plot have remained under wraps.
Following this project, Joe is also set to star in a TV adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel Bridesmaid Revisited opposite Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Meanwhile, Taylor reportedly jetted to the UK last week from across the pond to film a new music video in Liverpool – after an emotional performance of Champagne Problems convinced fans that the break-up reports were true.
A source close to the couple Entertainment Tonight: ‘The relationship had just run its course. It’s why [Alwyn] hasn’t been spotted at any shows,’ the insider added.
Meanwhile, Page Six claimed that the pair broke up ‘a few weeks ago.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to Swift’s representatives for comment.
Last year, Taylor seemingly shutdown engagement rumors in the lyrics of the track ‘Lavender Haze’ which opens her 10th studio album Midnights.
It appeared to be a direct hit at a July 2022 report that Taylor had been engaged to her boyfriend for a ‘few months.’
In Lavender Haze she sings: ‘All they keep asking me/ Is if I’m gonna be your bride/ The only kinda girl they see/ Is a one night or a wife.’
She then appeared to hit back at the outdated line of questioning: ‘I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say/ The 1950s s*** they want from me.’
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal last year, Joe also hit back at the persistent engagement rumors, declaring that he would never confirm or deny any marriage speculation.
He quipped, ‘If I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged, then I’d have a lot of pound coins.
‘I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say.’
SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk
