'Crossroads' Scholars - Britney Spears Interview
2-19-2002 - 8:54 AM 

By Fred Topel

Crossroads was not a film that became a star vehicle when Britney Spears came aboard. It was always intended to be a vehicle for Spears. The pop superstar suggested the story and writer Shonda Rhimes created the detailed script. At a press conference, Spears explained how she worked with Rhimes.

“[I created] the whole generalization of the girls going on the road trip and I had a lot of input to do with the characters and what each one was going through,” Spears said. “The whole storyline as far as why Lucy was going and why Mimi was going, the writer came in and helped me elaborate on that a little bit. It was actually a combined effort between both of us.”

Rhimes recalled her meeting with Spears.

“She specifically said that she wanted it to address real teen issues and things teenagers actually experience as opposed to being a fluffy take on what happens when you’re a teenager,” Rhimes said. “I’m not hip enough to have understood how popular Britney was before I did it, so I didn’t feel that ‘Oh my God, I’m writing something for Britney Spears.’ She was just a nice, goofy kid that I was writing a movie for.”

Spears plays Lucy, one of three friends who have drifted apart in high school and reunite for a road trip where they deal with their issues and rediscover their bond. Some viewers may recognize certain “Britney-isms,” expressions the star commonly uses in performances and even in her Pepsi commercials. Director Tamra Davis said she shot her film before most of the Pepsi spots aired, and was not trying to pay homage to Spears’ well-known persona.

“I didn’t know her so well and I didn’t know what Britney-isms there are,” Davis said. “As a matter of fact, I tried to not have so many of them so that people wouldn’t see her as Britney Spears in the movie. They would see her as playing a character.”

Spears sings two of her own songs in the film, “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” and “Over-Protected,” plus a karaoke rendition of “I Love Rock N’Roll.” For the Spears originals, the producers planned to release the songs prior to the film’s release, but even though fans are now familiar with the tunes, Spears’ first performance was for the cameras.

Producer Anne Carli recalled, “The day that she sings at the piano [in the film] was really the first day she ever sang that song, [“I’m Not A Girl…”]. What we didn’t anticipate was kids having familiarity with the song and thinking it was contrived. In actual fact, the first day she sang that song was the day we caught on film.”

Spears said she had to be convinced to sing for her first film role.

“At the very beginning of making this one, I didn’t really know if I wanted to have singing in it,” Spears said. “Once me and the writer talked about it, we decided it would spice it up a little bit to have a performance in there.”

However, in the wake of many singers unsuccessfully trying to break into film, Spears could not postulate what might make her triumph where others did not. “I don’t know, man,” she admitted. “I don’t know how my movie’s going to do. I’ll just see how it does and if it is a big bomb, then I’ll know what not to do next time.”

Davis said that the failure of Glitter and On the Line could not have affected Crossroads, since it was filmed long before the other films released.

“I think I watched Glitter for the first time last week,” Davis said. “When we were making the movie, I think we may have heard that Mariah Carrey was making a movie but we had no idea what she was doing other than it was more based on her life story. I think if anything we thought of Boys on the Side. We talked a lot about Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard as an example of when a singer crossed over and made a good motion picture.”

Josh's Reply: Ok, Brit. Here's a little tip. When you "create" a movie that is panned by every critic and even your biggest fans...do NOT admit you were the one who came up with the idea!! This shows how immature you really are, and how bad you are at career choices. Now we all know that Pepsi owns you AND you have no creativity. You could have fooled some of us on the creativity part, but you just went and blew any chance of that....poor thing.

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Page Created On: February 23, 2002