Taylor Swift on her current pop culture obsessions: Drake, Killing Eve, Britney Spears' laughter, and more

Global icon, noted Easter egg dropper, and recent EW cover star Taylor Swift is a pop culture obsessive. Here, in her own words, she gives us a run down on the musicians, TV shows, movies, and authors she's currently fanning over.

Lady Gaga

"When people think she's gonna go one way, she goes the exact opposite. She did that Tony Bennett record and won a Grammy. And then she pivots and goes and wins a Golden Globe for American Horror Story: Hotel. And then she pivots and does Joanne. And then she pivots and wins an Oscar for A Star Is Born. That's so cool, that ability to be so capable in so many different worlds. There's so much dexterity to her career."

Amazon Prime’s Fleabag

"I'm really, really obsessed with Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her writing. I love Fleabag. I just am so impressed by her body of work, her humor. What I love about is she makes you crack up laughing, shocks you, and breaks your heart all in the span of a few minutes in that show."

King Princess

"I love the romantic a of what she is doing. It is very nostalgic."

Lana Del Rey

"Her imagery. It's poetic. It's also full of modern pop culture and throwback nostalgia. Anything that she puts out, I'm going to not only listen to but do a full read-through of the lyrics."

Tayla Parx

"There's a song called 'I Want You' by [veteran pop songwriter] Tayla Parx. She's amazing. I love what a great writer she is. Her catalog is so impressive. I'd always seen her name credited and I'd always thought, 'She's incredible. This writer is so on fire.' But you hear her voice and you see that she really is a force."

Sally Rooney

"I really like her book Conversations With Friends. I like the tone she takes when she's writing. I think it's like being inside somebody's mind."

BBC America’s Killing Eve

"I'm just sort of obsessed with all things Killing Eve. I just watched the first episode of season 2. Jodie Comer doing all those dialects is absolutely incredible to me. Also, I don't think we've really seen such a lovable psychopath, where you really want to hang out with her but you should not. It's amazing. Oh god, it's so intoxicating. We've only ever seen that kind of endearing badness in men until recently, where we start to see female characters that are able to breakthrough that constant likability challenge we find ourselves in — where men are allowed to be bad but also, you know, wink, it's very sexy."

Drake

"I love his one-liners. Like 'You say I led you on/But you followed me.' Or 'This a Rollie, not a stopwatch/It don't ever stop.'"

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

"I was watching this movie sitting in bed bawling when all of a sudden, society decided that Mister Rogers had poisoned the youth of America by telling them each that they're special. And I was so upset because my mom raised me with [his] same mindset: You're special, everyone's special, everyone's an individual and deserves to have a beautiful, happy life and do what they love. And I would come home and I would watch Mister Rogers every single day when I got home from school. And that's the mindset that I try to tell fans. Like, you're special. You actually are. You're not replaceable, you're not worthless. Even if sometimes you feel those things, that's not true. And so when they're demonizing someone who tried to do nothing but lift up the imaginations and self-confidence and self-esteem of kids, I was weeping. So I called my mom, and she's like, 'Are you okay? Have you been in an accident?' I was like, [mock cry-shouting] 'He was just trying to do a good thing!'"

Ciara

"I think that Ciara's song 'Thinkin Bout You' is amazing. I listen to it every day when I wake up. It has the cutest video ever. She's so nice too. She's been working hard and just being a gracious, wonderful person to everyone she meets — and challenging herself and making cool stuff. I just love it when people do that."

Alanis Morissette

"I love the idea of a confessional songwriter — what Alanis Morissette was doing back in the '90s [where] she's just unafraid of expressing raw emotion. That was really inspiring to me. We're constantly moving further away step by step from the old, horrendous mindset that when a man shares his emotions, it's brave. But when a woman shares her emotions, she's oversharing. I think that the more women that tell their stories in an unapologetic, detailed, honest way, the better off we are."

Dixie Chicks

"The Dixie Chicks were making such interesting music and doing it in such an unapologetically feminine, imaginative way. I was very inspired by the album Fly and the aesthetics, because it was very clear they had really put a lot into the artwork. And so it got my brain thinking bigger in terms of, you know, you make an album, but then you can choose an entire look and color palette and aesthetic and symbolism and imagery and backstories — that you can really make an album even more of an experience if you so choose."

Dermot Kennedy

"I think it's very poetic what he says, you know. Like he'll include the word 'reverie.' I'll be like, thank you Dermot Kennedy for saying reverie in a song in 2019. We need that."

Britney Spears’ Laughter

"It's heaven. It's like a summer's day. And it makes you so happy. You wish you were there laughing with her and having a party."

For more on Taylor Swift, pick up Entertainment Weekly's special double music issue on stands Friday, or buy it here now. Don't forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

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