I was extremely skeptical when Britney Spears said she had been in the top 3 for the now-iconic role of Allie in The Notebook but watching the audition…
The video was published by the Daily Mail, with a sobbing Britney reading lines with an off-camera Ryan Gosling.
Casting director Matthew Barry says, “Everybody who was anybody that year wanted this part.”
He reveals she beat out “Scarlett Johansson, Claire Danes, Kate Bosworth, Amy Adams, Jamie King and Mandy Moore” – even ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake’s now-wife Jessica Biel – and it really did come down to her or Rachel McAdams.
‘Britney wasn’t just good – she was phenomenal. It was a tough decision. Britney blew us all away. Our jaws were on the floor. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. She brought her A-game that day.’
The 2004 romantic period drama, set in 1940s South Carolina, is about blue-collar Noah (Ryan Gosling) falling in love with high-society Allie (Rachel McAdams). Her parents don’t approve and Noah goes off to serve in World War II. The movie brought in $118.2 million in the box office and is the 15th highest-grossing romantic drama film of all time. It also romantically connected the two leads as they dated for two years before calling it quits in 2007.
Was Britney devastated to lose the role?
In her memoir, The Woman in Me, she says: ‘…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.”
The Woman in Me is in stores today.
Nesta Matthews 