Britney Spears starred in the 2002 film Crossroads and was up for the lead role in The Notebook, which she says in her new memoir, The Woman In Me, she’s glad she didn’t end up doing. However, there is another movie part she does regret not taking: a role in the Oscar-winning movie Chicago.
In her memoir, Britney writes that she’d already turned down three or four movies when executives involved in Chicago — based on the hit Broadway show — came to one of her shows and asked if she wanted to be a part of the project.
“I should’ve done it. 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.”
According to Britney, she would’ve gotten to play “a villain who kills a man, and sings and dance while doing it, too.” There are multiple characters in the cast who fit that description, so it’s not clear which one Britney would have played.
Britney goes on to say she “probably could have found ways, gotten training, to keep from becoming a Chicago character the way I had with Lucy in Crossroads.”
“If only I’d been brave enough not to stay in my safe zone, done more things that weren’t just within what I knew,” she writes. “But I was committed to not rocking the boat, and to not complaining even when something upset me.”
Chicago, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, Richard Gene, John C. Reilly, Queen Latifah and more, went on to win six Oscars, including Best Picture.
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