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Britney Spears’ 2004 audition for The Notebook has been released for the first time.
The romantic film, based on the 1996 novel by Nicolas Sparks, stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as teenagers Noah Calhoun and Alison “Allie” Hamilton, who fall in love in the 1940s.
Before McAdams, 44, took on the role of Allie, Spears, 41, was the frontrunner for the role.
In the audition tape, published by the Chron on Monday (October 23), Spears reads an emotional scene with Gosling off-camera in which Allie tells Noah that she is marrying another man.
“I’m not staying,” Spears says, in character. “I tried to call you to tell you I wasn’t staying – but no one answered the phone… Noah, you can’t marry two people. And I’m marrying Lon, so I should go, okay?”
“I really prayed for you to die in the war,” Spears says as she tears up. “Well, don’t die. I would have felt absolutely terrible if you had died. But somehow I didn’t want you to be alive because I couldn’t bear the thought of you being with someone else or that we’d never see each other again. So I have to go, okay?”
Casting director Matthew Barry shared the casting tape with the Mail and said: “Britney wasn’t just good, she was phenomenal.” The audition tape was recorded in Los Angeles on August 18, 2002.
“It was a tough decision,” Barry said of casting Canadian actor McAdams. “Britney blew us all away. Our jaws were on the floor. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. She did her best that day.”
Barry continued: “Britney beat out several of the best female actresses at the time. Scarlett Johansson, Claire Danes, Kate Bosworth, Amy Adams, Jamie King and Mandy Moore auditioned for the role. Britney beat them all. Everyone special that year wanted that role.”
Spears opens up about missing out on the role in her new memoir, The Woman in Me, out October 24.
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“While it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on The Mickey Mouse Club, I’m glad I didn’t,” she wrote, according to People.
Spears explained that she had difficulty breaking away from her character in her only film role, 2002’s “Crossroads.”
“My problem wasn’t with anyone involved in the production, but with how acting affected me,” she writes. “I think I started with method acting – I just didn’t know how to break out of my role. I really became this different person. Some people do method acting, but are usually conscious of the fact that they are doing it. But I didn’t have a breakup at all.
“In the end I walked differently, behaved differently, spoke differently. During the filming of Crossroads, I was someone else for months. I bet the girls I made that movie with still think to this day, “She’s a little…quirky.” If they thought that, they were right.
“I imagine there are people in the acting industry who struggle with something like this and have difficulty breaking away from a character. I hope I never come close to this occupational hazard again. Living like this, being half yourself and half a fictional character, is messed up. After a while you don’t know what’s real anymore.”