Joe Alwyn on Taylor Swift Breakup: 'A Hard Thing to Navigate'

Joe Alwyn is riding high as the star of the acclaimed new film "Kinds of Kindness," but thanks to a little album called "The Tortured Poets Department," Topic A remains his former relationship with superstar Taylor Swift.

Alwyn, 33, breaks his silence about Taylor in a new Q&A with The Sunday Times, which asks whether he will ever escape his status as Swift's onetime love.

Alwyn deflects on the question of whether he has heard songs that are reportedly about him like "So Long, London" and "The Black Dog," but says, "I would hope that anyone and everyone can empathize and understand the difficulties that come with the end of a long, loving, fully committed relationship of over six and a half years."

"That is a hard thing to navigate," he goes on. "What is unusual and abnormal in this situation is that, one week later, it’s suddenly in the public domain and the outside world is able to weigh in.”

He also calls their former love "very real," in contrast with the "very unreal space" of social media and tabloids.

He closes the topic by saying, “And the truth is, to that last point, there is always going to be a gap between what is known and what is said. I have made my peace with that.”

Joe also emphasizes that he and Taylor both wanted to keep their relationship private.

He explains, "As everyone knows, we together — both of us, mutually — decided to keep the more private details of our relationship private,” Alwyn said. “It was never something to commodify and I see no reason to change that now.”

“And, look, this is also a little over a year ago now and I feel fortunate to be in a really great place in my life, professionally and personally. I feel really good,” he added.

Alwyn declined to talk about whether he is still in touch with Swift of dating someone new.

He said simply, “I’m sure you can appreciate, given the level of noise and scrutiny about my past relationship, why I wouldn’t want to just open the door to things like that right now."

Alwyn's new film, Yorgos Lanthimos' "Kinds of Kindness," also stars Emma Stone, one of Swift's besties and the winner of the Oscar for Best Actress earlier this year.