Britney Spears’ audition for The Notebook has finally surfaced online 20 years later — and she makes a compelling performance as Allie.
The video , which was published by the Daily Mail on Monday, October 23, featured the singer sobbing as she read lines with an off-camera Ryan Gosling. (The 2004 romantic period drama starred Gosling as blue-collar Noah, who falls in love with upper-class Allie, a role which eventually went to Rachel McAdams, in 1940s South Carolina.)
“Look, Noah, I can’t be here. Not the way I feel about you. It’s not fair to Lon,” Spears-as-Allie declares in the monologue, which takes place as the characters reunite while Allie is engaged to another man. “Look, Noah — you can’t marry two people. And I’m marrying Lon. So I should go, OK?” But her character doesn’t leave.
“I prayed for you to die … in the war. Really,” Spears continues, getting emotional. “Well, not die. I would’ve felt completely horrible if you had died but I just kinda didn’t want you to be alive anymore ‘cause I couldn’t bear the thought of you being with somebody else or us never seeing each other again.”
The two-plus minute reel showcases Spears’ acting chops, particularly when it comes to navigating her way through heavy emotions.
Spears recalled the audition process for the film in her new memoir, The Woman in Me, which hits shelves on Tuesday, October 24.
“The Notebook casting came down to me and Rachel McAdams, and even though it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on the Mickey Mouse Club, I’m glad I didn’t do it,” she wrote in an expert published by People earlier this month. “If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone I’d have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night.”
The Grammy winner further explained in her book that she was prone to completely dissolving into character — which is what happened with her 2001 film, Crossroads.
“The experience wasn’t easy for me. My problem wasn’t with anyone involved in the production but with what acting did to my mind. I think I started Method acting — only I didn’t know how to break out of my character [Lucy]. I really became this other person. Some people do Method acting, but they’re usually aware of the fact that they’re doing it. But I didn’t have any separation at all,” she wrote, a source exclusively tells Us Weekly. “This is embarrassing to say, but it’s like, a cloud or something came over me and I just became this girl named Lucy. When the camera came on, I was her, and then I couldn’t tell the difference between when the camera was on and when it wasn’t.”
Spears became so wrapped up in the role that she said her then-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, even questioned why she was acting the way that she was.
“All I can say is it’s a good thing Lucy was a sweet girl writing poems about how she’s ‘not a girl, not yet a woman’ and not a serial killer,” Spears quipped.
