Watch Britney Spears' tearful audition for The Notebook with Ryan Gosling

If you're a pop star, I'm a pop star.

Britney Spears' never-before-seen audition for the 2004 tearjerker The Notebook has been released ahead of her memoir's arrival on bookshelves. The Daily Mail obtained the then-21-year-old pop star's reading for the role of Allie Hamilton from casting director Matthew Barry, who revealed that Spears beat out other hopefuls, including Claire Danes, Scarlett Johansson, and Jessica Biel, as a frontrunner for the role before it went to Rachel McAdams.

Filmed in 2002, the nearly-three minute clip showcases a rare turn for the star as she informs Ryan Gosling, who is reading his lines off-camera as his character Noah Calhoun, that she'll be marrying another man.

Barry said producers were blown away by Spears' audition. "It was a tough decision," he said. "Our jaws were on the floor. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. She brought her A-game that day."

Set in 1940s South Carolina, The Notebook centers on the love story between mill worker Noah (Gosling) and rich girl Allie (McAdams), who are wrest apart by disapproving parents and World War II. Spears' audition came after her role in the 2002 road trip dramedy Crossroads, which is set to return to theaters for a limited engagement this week to coincide with the Oct. 24 release of her memoir The Woman in Me.

In her new book, Spears said she was "glad" that she didn't get the role as Allie, citing her struggles with Method acting on set of Crossroads. "The experience wasn't easy for me," she wrote, per an excerpt published by PEOPLE. "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."

"Even though it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on The Mickey Mouse Club," Spears added of The Notebook, "I'm glad I didn't do it. If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone I'd have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night . . . I hope I never get close to that occupational hazard again."

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