The filmmaker has revealed Swift auditioned for the role, but he couldn't believe that anyone would pass her up for another woman - as Eddie Redmayne's character does in the film after falling for Amanda Seyfried's Cosette.

"She rather brilliantly auditioned for Eponine," Hooper told Vulture. "I didn't cast her, but I got very close to it.

"Ultimately, I couldn't quite believe Taylor Swift was a girl people would overlook. So it didn't quite feel right for her for the most flattering reason."

The role of Eponine eventually went to Samantha Barks, but Tom couldn't get Taylor out of his mind and he called her when he started casting Cats.

"I knew she was curious to work on a musical... (and) I wrote to her and just said, 'Would you like to meet? Would you like to see the world I'm creating?' And I did a presentation... I had a 10-second clip of a dancer with fur, lifelike. That was my pitch. She loved it and was very gracious and really supportive from then on."

Swift recently revealed she was thrilled to collaborate with Hooper for Cats, noting his insistence she and the rest of the cast attend cat school proved exciting.

"When Tom told me I had to go to cat school every day for work, I was thrilled. It is so unique," Swift told WENN.

"We went in and studied the movements of a cat. It's really exciting to learn about how they hold their posture. How they sense things, just the anatomy of a cat that can make it more conducive to how a human can inhabit that kind of spirit. It's just so fun."