‘The Notebook’ Casting Director Urges Britney Spears to Return to Acting
Britney Spears’ audition for The Notebook is going viral 20 years later, and the film’s casting director is sharing more behind-the-scenes details.
The two-plus minute clip, which was published by the Daily Mail on Monday, October 23, shows a 21-year-old Spears delivering a tearful monologue as Allie Hamilton while Ryan Gosling reads lines off-camera as Noah. The role ultimately went to Rachel McAdams and the romantic period drama, based on the Nicholas Sparks book of the same name, was released in 2004.
In the scene, Spears, as Allie, is struggling to choose between Noah, a past love she’s just reunited with, and her wealthy fiancé, Lon.
“I prayed for you to die in the war, really,” Spears says in the video, tears welling in her eyes. “Well, not die. I would have felt completely horrible if you would die. But I kinda didn’t want you to be alive anymore because I couldn’t bear the thought of you being with somebody else, or of us never seeing each other again. So I gotta go, OK?”
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The singer sobs as she performs the heart-wrenching lines, showcasing an emotional depth that casting director Matthew Barry said “blew us all away.”
“Britney Spears was unbelievable. She was absolutely unbelievable,” Barry told Entertainment Tonight. “Britney came in and blew us all away.”
The casting director also opened up about Spears and Goslings’ dynamic during the audition process. The two performers notably appeared together on The All New Mickey Mouse Club in the early 1990s.
“Ryan and Britney were very professional,” Barry recalled. “If you’ve ever met [director] Nick Cassavetes, he can be very intimidating at 6 foot 5. Ryan was really cool, he allowed Britney the time to meet with Nick to discuss the role, to discuss the character. And I think once it was all over, then it was, like, reunion time.”
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He also noted that Spears had likely “tapped into” her highly publicized breakup with Justin Timberlake, which occurred before the audition. In her newly released memoir, The Woman in Me, Spears revealed that she had had an abortion during her relationship with the ‘NSync singer.
“We didn’t know,” Barry said. “I think she definitely tapped into her emotional depth and brought it out. She showed us she was raw, she was emotional, she was fantastic. She laid it all out on the line.”
While Barry said that Spears was a serious contender for the role, McAdams was a better fit.
“Rachel blew us away,” he said. “Britney came in, and then Rachel came in, I think, shortly afterwards, and just destroyed us. It was a very, very hard toss-up between the two of them. There was lots of arguing as there are in any film that ever gets made. I think the studio probably wanted Britney for obvious reasons. But Rachel, it was her role.”
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In her book, Spears says that she’s grateful she didn’t end up doing the film.
“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 singer further explained that she had become too entwined with her character while filming the 2001 movie Crossroads.
“I think I started Method acting — only I didn’t know how to break out of my character [Lucy],” she wrote. “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.”
Despite not landing the role of Allie, Barry urged Spears to return to acting. “I’m glad her fans have now gotten a chance to finally see it,” he said of the audition footage. He later added, “Come back, come back. We need you. We all need you and come train with me.”
