Taylor Swift transforms into a jealous lover in her video for “Blank Space.” After seeing her man, model Sean O’Pry,  texting during a picnic date, enraged Swift tosses his phone in a fountain, yells at him in the library and sheds mascara-coated tears.

In an interview with Mashable, “She’s highly aware of one particular thing that’s happening right now — the idea that if you date her and you break up with her, she’s going to write a song about you,” explained video director Joseph Kahn, who said Swift is one of the smartest people he’s worked with in his 20 years of making acclaimed music videos. “She’s aware of this. She’s not an idiot.  Taylor wanted to make a video addressing this concept of, if she has so many boys breaking up with her maybe the problem isn’t the boy, maybe the problem is her.”

“We wanted to make a very funny version of this, that Taylor is the nightmare,” said Kahn, who has directed videos for Madonna, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, and Janet Jackson, among others. “She was very thorough: She came up with concepts, imagery and references. … When you have an artists wanting to test her imaging, it’s always great territory to be in.”