Britney Spears’ relationship with her father was clearly in trouble by the time she was just 19, the director of her only movie role has revealed.
Tamra Davis directed Spears in “Crossroads” in 2002, and told Pvnew that it was clear Jamie Spears was not an active and involved father — even though six years later he became her conservator.
Davis spoke ahead of the movie’s re-release and after Britney herself lifted the lid on her toxic relationship with her father in her new memoir, “The Woman in Me.”
The 2002 coming-of-age film, written by Shonda Rhimes, follows Britney’s character, Lucy, and her childhood best friends, played by Zoe Saldana and Taryn Manning, as they reunite after graduating high school and make a cross-country road trip to Los Angeles.
“I rarely saw her dad, maybe once or twice, but I could tell that her and her father did not have the best relationship,” Davis told Pvnew.
“I was told Britney doesn’t want people talking about her and to ‘please not do any interviews,’ so I didn’t. I don’t know to this day if that was really her telling me not to say anything or if that was her father telling me not to say anything.”
Davis told Pvnew that Britney advocated for “Crossroads” to be re-released in tandem with Tuesday’s publication of her memoir.
She said that at the time of the movie Britney was a bubbly, vivacious teen, eager to nail her first performance.
“She was 19 when I first started working with her. I was like, ‘You are controlling this whole thing in this amazing Southern way of being so nice and gracious,’ but yet if she didn’t want to talk to you, you weren’t in the room and she did it with such beautiful grace. I was like, ‘Oh, I really admire this woman.’”
Britney shared in an excerpt of her memoir that she didn’t realize she slipped into method acting during the filming of the drama-comedy.
“My problem wasn’t with anyone involved in the production but with what acting did to my mind,” she wrote.
“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. I ended up walking differently, carrying myself differently, talking differently.”
Davis told Pvnew she had no idea Britney was struggling internally.
“You never know what’s going on in someone’s head. I thought she was having the best time of her life but you know that’s because I would see her smiling and do that crazy funny laugh of hers,” she said.
“When she acted she really had to play tennis with professionals and be real. It took a lot of effort for her to do that.
“I really just admire her vulnerability. That she went so deep and was able to access this emotion.”
Despite her fame, Britney remained humble on set, Davis remembers, but she never acted again.
“She could have been like, ‘Hi, I’m running this, and everyone do what I want people to do or whatever,’ and she wasn’t.’ But she really emboldened all of us,” Davis said.
“Whether it was giving Shonda [Rhimes] her first job as a featured film writer and saying, ‘I believe in your words and this is the film I want to be in,’ and listening to what my advice was for her character – she was such an incredible professional and really trusted all the women she put around her to guide her through this experience.
“History will show that she’s a fantastic actor.”
