Britney Spears’ “phenomenal” The Notebook audition tape is here
Spears was second choice to Rachel McAdams, who eventually got the part
Aux News Britney Spears![Britney Spears’ “phenomenal” The Notebook audition tape is here](https://img.pastemagazine.com/wp-content/avuploads/2023/10/14224855/0142013f201777dee6bc32ddbea450ea.jpg)
While Britney Spears may not be known for her acting abilities—her one-and-only film role in 2002 road trip comedy Crossroads wasn’t exactly well received by critics at the time—the world was on the verge of a Spears-issance that could have changed the fabric of Hollywood as we know it.
Spears’ fans have long known that Britney made the shortlist for Allie, the protagonist of 2004 romantic drama The Notebook, opposite Ryan Gosling. While the part would eventually go to Rachel McAdams, then relatively unknown, fans have long been asking—nay, begging—for a glimpse at the “Toxic” singer’s audition tape, which casting director Matthew Barry called “phenomenal.” Now, per the Daily Mail, that day has finally arrived.
“I’m not staying. I tried to call you to tell you that I wasn’t going to stay but nobody answered the phone,” Britney begins in a line reading opposite Gosling, who remains off-camera during the audition. In the monologue, Allie tells Gosling’s Noah that she is marrying another man while her face crumples with emotion.
“Britney wasn’t just good—she was phenomenal,” Barry said of Britney’s 2002 audition. “It was a tough decision. Britney blew us all away. Our jaws were on the floor. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. She brought her A-game that day.”
It sounds like she had to, because “everybody who was anybody that year wanted this part,” according to the casting director. Still, “Britney beat out several of the top female actresses at the time,” he continued. “Scarlett Johansson, Claire Danes, Kate Bosworth, Amy Adams, Jamie King and Mandy Moore auditioned for this role. Britney beat out all of them.”
But while fans may mourn what could have been, Britney herself doesn’t seem all that broken up about it. “I’m glad I didn’t do it,” Spears writes in her upcoming memoir The Woman In Me, explaining that she didn’t enjoy Method acting and the “occupational hazard” of getting too close to her characters. “If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone I’d have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night,” she continues. “After a while you don’t know what’s real anymore.”
29 Comments
These reads can’t be easy. She did a good job.
Competent audition, but glad it went to McAdams, who is even a better singer than Spears.
AutoTune would like a word…!
If it was actually between “The Notebook,” a movie that I’m sure has plenty of fans, and “In the Zone,” a global highlight of 2000s dance music, I think we’re living the better timeline.
“After a while you don’t know what’s real anymore.”Is the whole book filled with such profound insights?
if we’re lucky. It’s her truth.
I’m guessing that the answer to your question is yes.
This doesn’t seem like a press blitz at all. Nope.
By all means, keep clicking on her press, you nutless fuck.
You’re an old woman.
I can’t believe her audition was this good. Good for her.
this is the appropriate reaction. Everyone else is meangirling.
Crawl back into your safe space.
“Were you or were you not, the first choice for the female lead in The Notebook?”“Yes! Yes, I was and I had to, unfortunately, pass because of a scheduling conflict.We, we went over this! I graciously handed it to Rachel McAdams and she did a fine job with the film. I’m secure enough to admit that!”
“The Gang catches Sweet Bri in a lie”
While Britney Spears may not be known for her acting abilities…or singing abilities…or basic life skills…
As a teenager in the late 90s and early 00s, even at her peak, I couldn’t figure out how she became a star. She had absolutely no appeal, as an actor, or a singer. She didn’t even have camera presence.
the little schoolgirl outfit mat have had something to do with it
Although she was not a good vocalist, the label did hire people who were able to write catchy ear-worm singles for her to “sing” — it isn’t my kind of music by any stretch, but they were written to be popular, and some of them at least were catchy (and have lasted the test of time better than say, Christina Aguilera’s output during that same time). The rest, as you note, comes down to the jailbait schoolgirl thing. All hail the power of the video.
I love how nobody seemed to notice or care that lyrics of biggest pop hits of the 90s and 00s made no goddamn sense because they were literally all written by some random Swedish dude. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin)
There was a great episode of Girls 5Eva where they go to the Swedish songwriter for new songs.
Didn’t have camera presence? She definitely had camera presence.
Do you have eyes or ears? You don’t have to like her music but “wondering” how she became a star is laughable.
To you. Millions of other folks disagree. I’ve never been a huge Brit fan but saying definitively she had zero appeal or presence is demonstrably false.
I keep trying to find a politic way of expressing this, but there isn’t really, so…she just looks like a stupid person. She has this vacant, hamster-like quality that I always found extremely off-putting, especially when she was gamely attempting to vamp it up and act “sexy” in her videos.
Yeah that’s it. She strikes me as profoundly stupid and emotionally immature and that negates what physical attractiveness or charisma she might have.
Gotta be cool to be a jaded cynic that I can count on to need attention on every news post lol
I am pretty wonderful.
Surprised they didn’t try to find another Nicholas Sparks book for her to star in.