Taylor Swift and her best friend, Abigail Anderson Berard, still talk to each other in the deadpan voice of Napoleon Dynamite. They started doing impressions of Jon Heder’s character in high school. More than 20 years later, Swift joked, “it’s something our husbands have to put up with.”
Swift played both sides of one of those conversations at a November 1 screening of Toy Story 5 in New York City. Director Andrew Stanton had been talking about two girls in the film, Bonnie and Blaze, whose friendship reminded Swift of her own.
Swift remembered moving to the Nashville area at 14 and trying to work out which girls in her class she might get along with. She and Anderson sat next to each other in freshman English at Hendersonville High School. Even Blaze’s curly hair reminded Swift of her friend.
Swift married Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce on July 3 at Madison Square Garden. Anderson and her husband, Charles “Charlie” Berard, married in 2022 and welcomed their son, Bennett, in 2024.
Swift Asks About Abigail’s Son in Napoleon’s Voice
Here’s Taylor Swift doing her Napoleon Dynamite impression https://t.co/CBWMHr8Erm
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) November 1, 2026
In the 2004 comedy, Heder plays an Idaho teenager who can make a perfectly ordinary question sound like an imposition. Swift used that voice to ask what her friend was up to. “Are you playing with your cute kid?” she asked. Then she supplied the indignant reply herself, finishing with “What’s the problem with that?” Her performance got a laugh from the audience, as Us Weekly reported.
Swift told Stanton she recognized the relief of meeting someone who understands why you find something funny. Pixar gave viewers a clue that Bonnie and Blaze would get along before the girls even met. Visual effects supervisor Thomas Jordan told TechRadar that the artists used similar styles, in different colors, to show what each girl imagined at play. When Bonnie and Blaze finally play together, the artists combine the two palettes.
Jessie Inspired the Song Swift Wrote for ‘Toy Story 5’
Another character drew Swift to the film as a songwriter. She and Jack Antonoff wrote and produced “I Knew It, I Knew You” for Jessie, the cowgirl voiced by Joan Cusack. Swift told Good Morning America that Jessie made her think about what it’s like to remember someone vividly even after your lives have taken you in different directions.
The single came out June 5, two weeks before the film opened in theaters. At the Los Angeles premiere, Swift sang it live for the first time, then joined composer Randy Newman for “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” She had first watched Toy Story when she was five. For the premiere, she brought her old VHS copy for the cast to sign.
The Friend in Swift’s Home Movies and the Redhead in ‘Fifteen’
Fans got to see Anderson in Swift’s video for “I’m Only Me When I’m With You,” which mixes scenes of the teenage singer on the road with home movies of her family and friends. On “Fifteen,” from the 2008 album Fearless, Swift put Anderson’s first name in the lyrics. Anderson played herself in that video, laughing with Swift beside a blackboard as the song describes how they met.
By 2009, Anderson was at the University of Kansas on a swimming scholarship. When Swift visited that spring, Anderson brought her along to a journalism lecture. Professor Chuck Marsh told the Kansas Reflector that he noticed Anderson smiling at him from her seat. When class ended and students rushed toward her guest, he had to ask his graduate students who Anderson had brought.
On May 6, 2023, it was Anderson’s turn to be in the audience. At her second Eras Tour show in Nashville, Swift sat down at the piano and told the Nissan Stadium crowd she could give them one clue and they’d know the next song. She dedicated “Fifteen” to her redheaded high school best friend. From the VIP tent, Anderson sang along.