Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles reprise Dead Poets Society roles for Taylor Swift's "Fortnight" video

Taylor Swift's lead single "Fortnight" features US actors Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles from “Dead Poets Society” in its new music video. Swift's special affinity for the number 1989 aligns with the film's release year and her birth year.

The pop superstar released a surprise "double album" edition of “The Tortured Poets Department”, her latest record. It contains references to her recent romances and quickly became Spotify's most-streamed album in a single day. Swift also set a new record as the most-streamed artist in a single day on the platform.

A day after the initial 16-track album and 15-track companion album “The Anthology” were released, Swift debuted the music video for "Fortnight," featuring US rapper and singer Post Malone. The video tells a tale of star-crossed lovers set in a dystopian romance.

The video opens with Swift waking up in a white gown, chained to a bed in an inverted asylum. She wipes her face, revealing tattoos on her skin. Later, she enters an office-like room full of typewriters in a black outfit and finds Post Malone. The two embrace on a deserted highway, caught in a whirlwind of loose paper.

The pair lie down on the paper, which forms an outline of a face. Fans speculate the face resembles one seen in the video for her 2014 track "Style," which is thought to reference her former relationship with British star Harry Styles.

Later in the video, Swift is strapped to an electrotherapy chair while Hawke and Charles appear as scientists in white lab coats with names referencing their “Dead Poets Society“ characters.

Swift expressed excitement about working with Hawke and Charles on social media: "I'm still laughing from getting to work with the coolest guys on earth, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles (tortured poets, meet your colleagues from down the hall, the dead poets)." She described writing the "Fortnight" music video as a process of visualizing the worlds she imagined while making the album.

The video features metaphors and references to different aspects of the album. "For me, this video turned out to be the perfect visual representation of this record and the stories I tell in it," Swift said.

Swift also praised Post Malone's performance, describing him as a "tortured tragic hero" who "blew me away on set." She also commended the "unfathomably brilliant" cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and her team of "dream collaborators."