After 20 years, Britney Spears‘ audition for The Notebook has finally been posted online, and she gives a strong performance as Allie.
The singer can be seen crying in the video, which was released by the Daily Mail on Monday, October 23. She is reading lines with an off-camera Ryan Gosling. Gosling played the blue-collar Noah in the 2004 romantic period drama, which eventually went to Rachel McAdams. Noah falls in love with upper-class Allie in 1940s South Carolina.
I’m sorry, Noah, but I have to leave. I don’t feel that way about you. The speech, which occurs as the characters reconcile while Allie is engaged to another guy, begins with Spears-as-Allie saying, “It’s not fair to Lon. You cannot marry two people, Noah. And I’m wed to Lon. So I should leave, right? But her persona stays put.
I prayed that you would perish in battle. Really,” Spears says, her voice breaking. Well, don’t go dead. I didn’t want you to be alive any longer because I couldn’t take the notion of you being with someone else or of us never seeing each other again, even though I would have felt absolutely terrible if you had passed away.
Spears’ acting skills are on full display in the two-plus minute clip, especially when it comes to handling intense emotions.
In her brand-new memoir, The Woman in Me, which hits bookstores on Tuesday, October 24, Spears discussed the movie’s audition process.
Even while it would have been enjoyable to reunite with Ryan Gosling following our time on the Mickey Mouse Club, she noted in an expert piece published by People earlier this month, “The Notebook casting came down to me and Rachel McAdams. I’m glad I didn’t do it.” If I had, I would have spent every waking hour acting like a 1940s heiress rather than working on my record In the Zone.
The Grammy winner went on to say in her book that she has a history of entirely vanishing into her roles, which is what happened in her 2001 movie Crossroads.
“I found the experience to be challenging. My issue was not with any of the production’s participants, but rather with what acting did to my head. I believe I began Method acting, but I had no idea how to leave my role, Lucy. I actually changed into this other person. Method acting is practiced by certain people, but they are usually conscious of it. According to an insider speaking exclusively to Us Weekly, she wrote, “But I didn’t have any separation at all. It’s humiliating to say, but I felt like a fog or something enveloped me, transforming me into Lucy. I was her when the camera turned on, so I lost the ability to distinguish between when it was on and when it wasn’t.
Spears claimed that she became so engrossed in the character that her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake even questioned why she was acting in the manner 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 joked.