Celebrity
Britney Spears Reveals She Turned Down This Oscar-Winning Film
“I would have gotten to play a villain who kills a man, and sings and dances while doing it, too.”
In a recent excerpt from her new book The Woman In Me, Britney Spears made it clear that she was done with acting. Looking back, however, there is one role that she regrets turning down. In the memoir, she revealed that she rejected a role in Chicago, the Oscar-winning 2002 adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical.
Spears explained that while she was on her Dream Within A Dream Tour in 2001, studio executives visited a venue where she was performing and personally made her the offer for a role. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to act again after Crossroads, but I was tempted by this one,” she writes. “It was Chicago.”
At the time, she had already turned down “three or four movies” and opted to do the same with Chicago. “I was in my moment with the stage show,” she writes. “I didn’t want to be distracted from music. I was happy doing what I was doing.”
However, over two decades later, Spears still regrets this decision.
Why Spears Regrets Turning Down Chicago
In the memoir, Spears said she “should’ve done” Chicago as a way to expand her artistic abilities and wield her power before it was taken away through her conservatorship.
“I had power back then; I wish I’d used it more thoughtfully, been more rebellious,” she writes. “Chicago would have been fun. It’s all dance pieces—my favorite kind: prissy, girly follies, Pussycat Doll–like, serve-off-your-corset moves. I wish I’d taken that offer.”
The singer refrained from divulging which character she was asked to portray. However, she noted that she “would have gotten to play a villain who kills a man, and sings and dances while doing it, too.”
This means that she likely would have been a part of the musical’s pivotal “Cell Block Tango” number — or potentially even played one of the lead roles of Roxie Hart or Velma Kelly, for which Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones received Oscar nominations.
Why She Doesn’t Regret Losing The Notebook
As revealed in an excerpt prior to her book’s release, Spears almost starred opposite her former Mickey Mouse Club co-star Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, with casting coming down to her and Rachel McAdams. However, she actually doesn’t regret losing out on that role.
That audition came after her film debut in Crossroads, which basically turned her off acting completely as she found it difficult to separate herself from her character.
“My problem wasn’t with anyone involved in the production but with what acting did to my mind,” she writes. “I think I started Method acting—only I didn’t know how to break out of my character. I really became this other person.”
For Chicago, Spears thinks she would’ve been able to change her approach to an acting method that was healthier for her. “I probably could have found ways, gotten training, to keep from becoming a Chicago character the way I had with Lucy in Crossroads,” she remarks.
“I wish I’d tried something different.”
