Watch Britney Spears Audition for ‘The Notebook’ as Old Audition Clip Resurfaces

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?”