Britney Spears has opened up about her experiences with “Method acting” while filming the 2002 film Crossroad.
The “Gimme More” singer is soon to release her memoir The Woman in Me, with revelations from the book already dropping.
In an extract shared with People, Spears, 41, opened up about one of her brief journeys into acting in the teen movie Crossroads. Spears starred opposite Taryn Manning and Zoe Saldana in the film about three girls on a roadtrip across America.
Writing in The Woman in Me, Spears compared her experience to Method acting, a practice where actors try and live like the characters they are portraying at all times.
“The experience wasn’t easy for me,” she said. “My problem wasn’t with anyone involved in the production but with what acting did to my mind.
“I think I started Method acting – only I didn’t know how to break out of my character. I really became this other person. Some people do Method acting, but they’re usually aware of the fact that they’re doing it. But I didn’t have any separation at all.”
Spears continued: “I ended up walking differently, carrying myself differently, talking differently. I was someone else for months while I filmed Crossroads. Still to this day, I bet the girls I shot that movie with think, She’s a little… quirky. If they thought that, they were right.”
She soon decided that acting wasn’t for her, saying: “That was pretty much the beginning and end of my acting career, and I was relieved. I imagine there are people in the acting field who have dealt with something like that, where they had trouble separating themselves from a character.
“I hope I never get close to that occupational hazard again. Living that way, being half yourself and half a fictional character, is messed up. After a while you don’t know what’s real anymore.”
Spears with Justin Timberlake at the ‘Crossroads’ premiere— (Getty Images)
This week, another bombshell was dropped from Spears’s memoir as the singer revealed in an extract that she had an abortion while dating Justin Timberlake from 1998 to 2002.
The pop star wrote that her pregnancy had been a “surprise” but not a “tragedy”, recalling: “But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young…
“I’m sure people will hate me for this, but I agreed not to have the baby. I don’t know if that was the right decision.”
The Woman in Me is released on Tuesday 24 October.
