October 24, 2023
Watch: Michelle Williams Is Doing Voices for Britney Spears Memoir
Emell Adolphus READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Oscar-winner Michelle Williams is harnessing the full power of her acting chops to read Britney Spears' highly anticipated memoir, "The Woman in Me."
As reported by IndieWire, a now viral audio clip of Williams hears her mimic Justin Timberlake's blaccent in a particularly revealing passage where Spears talks about NSYNC wanting to appeal to a Black audience.
The scene begins with Spears and Timberlake in New York York City and trying to impress R&B singer Ginuwine.
"His band *NSYNC was back then what people called 'so pimp.' They were white boys but they loved hip-hop. To me, that's what separated them from the Backstreet Boys, who seemed very consciously to position themselves as a white group," Spears writes and Williams reads to perfection.
She continued, "*NSYNC hung out with Black artists. Sometimes I thought they tried too hard to fit in. One day J and I were in New York, going to parts of town I had never been to before. Walking our way was a guy with a huge, blinged out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. J got all excited and said so loud, 'Oh yeah, oh shiz oh shiz, Ginuwine, what's up homie?' After Ginuwine walked away, [Spears' longtime assistant] Felicia did an impression of J. J wasn't even embarrassed. He just took it and looked at her like, 'OK, fuck you.'"
Cringe. And it seems Timberlake didn't get much better later with his regularly cringey behavior.
"The Notebook" casting director Matthew Barry revealed to The Daily Mail that Spears' audition for the critically-acclaimed comedy was "phenomenal."
"Britney blew us all away. Our jaws were on the floor. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. She brought her A-game that day," Barry said. "Scarlett Johansson, Claire Danes, Kate Bosworth, Amy Adams, Jamie King, and Mandy Moore auditioned for this role. Britney beat out all of them. Everybody who was anybody that year wanted this part."
Spears wrote that she was "glad" that the role eventually went to Rachel McAdams. "If I had, instead of working on my album 'In the Zone' I'd have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night," Spears wrote.
Hear Williams read below.