The Notebook could have starred Britney Spears in lieu of Rachel McAdams.
The revelation is from Spears’ forthcoming memoir, The Woman in Me. Hollywood casting director Matthew Barry shared a clip of Spears’ audition with the Daily Mail. She was in the final round of auditions to play Allie opposite Ryan Gosling, who’s off-camera in the video, dated from Aug. 18, 2002.
“I’m not staying,” Spears says in character, as Allie. “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?”
“I prayed for you to die in the war, really,” Spears says as she tears up. “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, okay?”
