Will the Real Elly Conway Please Stand Up?

Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway. Photo: Apple TV+

Spoilers follow for the identity of author Elly Conway. There are no spoilers for the film Argylle’s plot.

The real Elly Conway, author of Argylle, has been uncovered by The Telegraph, and it’s two people (not stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.) The authors, I Am Pilgrim’s Terry Hayes and When She Was Bad’s Tammy Cohen, are behind the spy comedy that reunited Barbie stars Dua Lipa and John Cena. Vulture has reached out to Apple Original Films for comment. Elly Conway was previously described as a New Yorker who works at a diner and loves brunch, but that could’ve been anyone! There have been several conspiracy theories as to who wrote the book that is supposed to have inspired the film, like JK Rowling and Taylor Swift— Swift wrote a book in the All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) short film so that it could’ve been an Easter Egg! “God, I hope all the people that pre-ordered on the basis that Taylor wrote it aren’t disappointed,” said Cohen to The Telegraph on the theories. Director Matthew Vaughn originally claimed an unreleased book written by Conway inspired the movie, and it would be released in conjunction with the film.

Here’s what actually happened: Vaughn wanted to make a movie adaptation of Hayes’s I Am Pilgrim; however, MGM had the rights, and “they could not do a deal with Matthew for their own bizarre reasons,” explained Hayes. But Vaughn decided that instead of adapting an existing book he couldn’t get his hands on, he’d ask Hayes to write an accompanying book inspired by a movie in development, Argylle, a book that would be like what Conway would’ve written in the context of the movie. Hayes asked Cohen to co-author the book with him, as he was still working on The Year of the Locust, and Argylle was born.

Just two days ago, before their identity was uncovered, “Elly Conway” posted a photo of Hayes’s book, foreshadowing the end of the mystery while getting some free promo in. “Going back to read Terry Hayes’ debut novel, so I’m fully booked for tonight,” wrote Conway, as the comments section was filled with Swifties fixated on the “debut” of it all. Alas, there were no screen doors to slam at all. But there were Scottish Folds.