Swift says she felt “impostor syndrome” (when a person doubts their skills or feels like a fraud) while directing the short film, but immense curiosity led her to pursuing it. So, just who is the woman behind All Too Well: the Short Film? Here are eight fun facts you may not know about the famous singer-songwriter and recent film director, Taylor Swift.

She was intentionally given a gender-neutral name

Swift’s mother, Andrea Swift, was a former mutual fund marketing executive. Worried that her daughter would be treated differently as a woman in the corporate world, she gave Swift a gender-neutral name to help her business career – at least on paper.

The inspiration for her name came from fellow American singer-songwriter and guitarist James Taylor. It would seem that Taylor Swift really took on his name and his career.

She comes from a long family line of bank presidents

The Swifts have been making money since the 19th century. Taylor Swift’s father, Scott Swift, comes from three generations of bank presidents and was himself a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch (now Merrill, a wealth management division of Bank of America). He has been telling her to save money and invest in utilities since she was a child.

“My dad is so passionate about what he does in the way that I’m passionate about music,” said Swift in a 2011 video on her YouTube channel. According to Swift, he “lives for being a stockbroker”, and would ask about potential investments soon after talking about his daughter.

She grew up wanting to be a financial adviser

As such, while her classmates talked about wanting to be astronauts and ballerinas, Swift had dreams of becoming a financial adviser. “I love my dad so much, because he’s so gung-ho for his job, and I just saw how happy it made him, and I just thought, I can broke stocks,” said Swift in the same video.

She loved watching Behind the Music as a kid

Unlike her friends, whose childhood revolved around watching the Disney Channel, Swift would watch Behind the Music – a 1997 documentary television series that takes a close look into the personal lives of some of the greatest pop artists.

Swift realised that these pop sensations would lose their sense of self-awareness throughout their career, which resulted in them going “off the rails”. She said they often “turned a blind eye”, and eventually became deluded with their own success.

“I never wanted to make that mistake in my life, regardless of what my career ended up being. I took away these kinds of life lessons from that show,” said Swift in a 2014 Esquire interview.

She has a lucky number – 13

For many, the number 13 represents bad luck. Taylor Swift, on the other hand, views it as her good luck charm. She even paints a “13” on her hand before every show.

“Basically,” she said in a 2009 MTV interview. “Whenever a 13 comes up in my life, it’s a good thing.”

She sang the US national anthem before a basketball game when she was 12

At the age of 12, Swift sang The Star-Spangled Banner at a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game in her home state of Pennsylvania. She wore an American flag shirt, with a cardigan and a headband – both of which were red.

All of her friends ditched her for a year after that, calling her “annoying”. A 2011 article by The New Yorker explains that they might have exiled Swift because she started getting recognised for her singing, or it could have been due to her natural primness.

She recalls wanting to call her mum when her friends brought up the idea of sneaking into a guy’s house and drinking beer. Swift “never felt comfortable being edgy like that”.

She was the outsider kid

Although she has 11 Grammy Awards and 25 Billboard Music Awards, Swift was apparently never the “cool kid at the party”. The singer says she has always felt like an outsider.

When asked in a 2016 YouTube video titled “73 Questions with Vogue” what she still has from her childhood, Taylor said “my insecurities”. She remembers being made fun of for liking country music and dressing in sundresses and cowboy boots. At 16, she stopped caring about being popular. All that mattered was music and her dream of becoming a singer.

“All of my favourite people – people I really trust – none of them were cool in their younger years,” said Swift. “Because if you know how to be cool in middle school, maybe you have skills you shouldn’t. Maybe you know how to be conniving, like, naturally.”

She maintained a 4.0 GPA despite being home-schooled

Swift has always been an overachiever, even during preschool. Despite being home-schooled for her junior and senior years, she graduated with a 4.0 GPA (which indicates an A average in taken classes) and finished two years’ worth of coursework in a year.

Because of her music career, she did not go to college, but it remained a dream of hers. In an interview with Marie Claire, Swift said she was determined to get that degree “somehow, some way”.

The singer finally got to somewhat experience college life earlier this year – in May, she received an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from New York University (NYU), and she gave a speech at the commencement ceremony held at the city’s Yankee Stadium.

“The times I was told ‘no’ or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut – looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes’,” said Swift during her speech.