Austin Swift spent his high school years in the Nashville suburb of Hendersonville, where he attended Pope John Paul II High School, a Catholic prep school where the music video for “You Belong With Me” was filmed. In a 2009 Rolling Stone article on his sister, a then-16-year-old Swift was described as a “lacrosse player and academic overachiever” who had moved into a garage-level bedroom in the home he shared with his parents and famous sibling. But when Swift himself has discussed his high school years, things have seemed far less rosy. He told Vanity Fair that he was self-conscious of his weight, and he recalled not having many friends back then.
It was because of loneliness that Swift turned to the cinema for comfort. “I would go to the movies, and Daniel Craig was my friend, and Christian Bale was my friend, and Clive Owen was my friend, and Viggo Mortensen was my friend,” he said in the Vanity Fair article. He developed a love of the screen that later led him to study film in college and, after graduation, intern at Lionsgate. In particular, Swift has a deep love for his favorite genre, sci-fi, as well as action flicks. He lists “Top Gun,” “GoldenEye,” and “The Empire Strikes Back” amongst his favorite films, and Star Wars, in particular, has been referenced multiple times on his socials.
