Zoey Deutch Says Having Two Taylor Swift Songs in “Voicemails for Isabelle” ‘Meant a Lot’ to Her (Exclusive)
Zoey Deutch Says Having Two Taylor Swift Songs in “Voicemails for Isabelle” ‘Meant a Lot’ to Her (Exclusive)
Rebecca AizinThu, June 25, 2026 at 8:15 PM UTC
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Zoey Deutch and Taylor SwiftCredit: David Becker/Getty; Jamie McCarthy/Getty -
Zoey Deutch stars in Netflix's Voicemails for Isabelle, which features two Taylor Swift songs in emotional moments
The film's director and music team worked hard to secure Swift's "marjorie" and "New Year's Day" for key scenes
Este Haim, who scored the movie, said live strings and harmonies helped capture the raw emotion of the story
Like millions of people around the world, Zoey Deutch is a Swiftie — and her latest movie shows it.
The actress, 31, stars in Netflix's Voicemails for Isabelle opposite Nick Robinson as Jill and Wes, respectively, a couple who meet after Wes accidentally begins receiving Jill's voicemails for her dead sister. The emotional movie features two Taylor Swift songs, about which Deutch could not contain her excitement in a recent interview with PEOPLE.
"Okay, humblebrag but not humble, we have two Tay Swift songs. As a Swiftie?" Deutch says. "That's crazy."
"That's huge," Robinson, 31, adds.
Nick Robinson as Wes and Zoey Deutch as Jill in Voicemails for Isabelle.Credit: Diyah Pera/Netflix
Swift's hits "marjorie" and "New Year's Day" are both featured in needle drop moments in the movie, with the former playing during an emotional montage of Jill missing her sister after her death. The latter appears toward the end of the movie when Wes is thinking of Jill on (surprise, surprise) New Year's Eve, wishing he could be with her.
Including both was significant to Deutch, who was shocked the movie could even feature them.
"I'm a Swiftie, and it meant a lot, clearly. I don't know how it happened," she says. "I'm thrilled. I saw the first cut. When I saw the first cut, I was like, 'Oh, it's temp music. What are you going to actually get there?' [Director Leah McKendrick] was like, 'No, we got them.' "
Not only does "New Year's Day" play in the background of a pivotal moment for Wes, but he also quotes Swift, 36, to his friends in the scene.
"I'm sorry. The old Wes can't come to the phone right now," Wes says, referring to Swift's lyrics in "Look What You Made Me Do." "Because he's dead."
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Zoey Deutch as Jill in Voicemails for IsabelleCredit: Courtesy of Netflix
In an interview with ABC Audio, McKendrick, 39, said the timing of the songs was intentional.
“In my mind, we have this girl who's yearning, longing, grieving, and we have the perfect song: ‘Marjorie' just feels so right,” she said. “But by the end, he's the one longing, yearning, grieving — listening to Taylor Swift.”
The movie was scored by Este Haim and Amanda Yamate and supervised by Season Kent, who were all also eager to work with Swift's material (Haim, 40, is part of the sister trio Haim and is famously close friends with Swift).
"Any movie that has a Taylor Swift song, I'm in," Haim told Tudum. Kent added, "We're all fans of Taylor. 'Marjorie' was a song Leah had in mind before we started shooting, and we all felt it might be a long shot. Once we tried it in the cut, that was it — we had to figure out a way to make it happen."
Haim and Yamate also told PEOPLE they were inspired by the "palette of the needle drops" in the movie.
"We knew off the bat that we were going to get to touch on the very raw scenes where [Jill is] talking to her sister, where she's feeling that grief," Haim said. "So, we felt like with live strings and with live vocal harmonies, that was going to bring a real, raw, human element to Jill's character."
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Voicemails for Isabelle is now streaming on Netflix.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
