Mandy Moore — no, not that one — has choreographed everything from La La Land to Dancing with the Stars numbers to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. Now, she's reflecting on what it was like to choreograph Taylor's latest project: the official music video for "The Fate of Ophelia" off her latest studio album, The Life of a Showgirl.
Appearing on Thursday's episode of the Dancing with the Stars Official Podcast, Mandy said the experience of working with Taylor, especially on this video, has been "insane" in the best way.
"I've been in Taylor Swift's orbit now for a couple years, and it is a wild, amazing, incredible, magical ride," she said. "She is everything you want her to be. I just think she's the real deal and I feel so lucky when I get to create with her, because we just get each other. It's one of those things that you never know — I never thought I'd ever be creating alongside Taylor Swift. Never in a million years. And then when it happened, I just thought I can't imagine not creating alongside her."
Taylor and her team are well-known for keeping projects under lock and key until they're ready to announce them. "The Fate of Ophelia" music video was no different, Mandy said.
"It was awesome: It was in full secret, no one knew it was happening," she added. "Which I also love: that they're so good at keeping things under wraps. It's a big deal and all of us take it very seriously, so when it dropped and everybody got to see it, I was like 'ha ha! I knew this was happening.' It was so exciting."
Mandy appeared on the DWTS podcast to discuss her work choreographing the opening number for DWTS's Disney Night, as well as her past work on the ballroom dancing competition show. (There's also further Taylor-DWTS crossover this season, now that former Eras Tour backup dancer Jan Ravnik has joined the cast as one of this season's pro dancers.)
"It's oddly not [so different]," Mandy said of comparing her work on DWTS and the Eras Tour. "Maybe it's because any job I do I take very seriously. I really love it and it's everything to me in the moment. Yeah, sure, choreographing for 90,000 people, is it any different than the millions of people that watch this? I mean, it's a different medium, it's camera, but Taylor loves to tell stories in her songs; I love to tell stories in my choreography. There's storytelling here. So for me, honestly, I'm just happy when anyone calls me and asks me to make up dance moves. I love it."