Speaking to the Daily Mail, casting director, Matthew Berry, said, “Britney beat out several of the top female actresses at the time. Scarlett Johansson, Claire Danes, Kate Bosworth, Amy Adams, Jamie King and Mandy Moore auditioned for this role. Britney beat out all of them. Everybody who was anybody that year wanted this part.”
In the video that was filmed in 2002, a young Britney Spears is reading a scene opposite Ryan Gosling. Spears puts on an emotional performance, acting out the scene where her character tells Noah she’s marrying another man.
“I’m not staying. I tried to call you to tell you that I wasn’t going to stay — but nobody answered the phone… Noah, you can’t marry two people. And I’m marrying Lon, so I should go, okay?”
Barry said that Spears’ “wasn’t just good, she was phenomenal.”
The role went to Rachel McAdams and became the film we all know and love today. But it would have been a very different film if Spears ended up playing the role of Allie.
In her memoir The Woman In Me, Spears revealed that she was happy to have missed out on the role.
“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.
“If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone, I’d have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night.”
Spears decided she would ditch acting after she had an unpleasant experience filming Crossroads.
“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 revealed in her memoir.
“I hope I never get close to that occupational hazard again. Living that way, being half yourself and half a fictional character, is messed up. After a while you don’t know what’s real anymore.”
BRITNEY SPEARS audition for THE NOTEBOOK has been released, she was one of the final 3 girls considered to get the role pic.twitter.com/KPpSOU4GBv
— Pop Culture Posts (@notgwendalupe) October 23, 2023
