Rebel Wilson’s new Netflix movie Senior Year dropped earlier this month. However, it’s not critics’ approval that Wilson’s seeking, but rather Britney Spears’.
In the American comedy film, Wilson plays a 37 year old woman who’s awoken from a 20 year coma and heads back to high school to get her diploma. While she’s physically aged, Wilson still acts like the 20-year-old she was when she went into the coma. In one scene, the Aussie actor recreated Britney’s music video for (You Drive Me) Crazy.
During an interview for Extra, Wilson revealed that she’s desperately seeking Britney Spear’s approval over the scene.
“The only person I care about their review of this film is Britney Spears herself, so, Britney, I hope you check it out this weekend on Netflix and just let me know!” she said. “Like, hit me up on the DMs… because we really are paying homage to you and we hope you enjoy it.”
Wilson told the publication that she hadn’t spoken personally to Spears about the scene, but revealed that her label representatives gave permission for the song to be used.
“I didn’t personally talk to her. It was through her label, but I’m really glad that she agreed that we could do it in the film,” she said.
During an exclusive interview with Netflix, Wilson discussed how she got in character to impersonate the pop star.
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“In this scene, Stephanie (Wilson’s character) is a bit annoyed that the 2022 cheer squad, they don’t do sexy dancing, they don’t do stunts, and she’s trying to loosen them up a bit. She’s encouraging the young teens to dance and she goes, ‘what better way to get them dancing slutty.. then to just dance a Britney Spears number,” she explained.
“So, I encourage the kids to dance to Britney Spears Crazy in the basement. We rehearsed the scene in Atlanta and sometimes we’d have to – because of all the work on the movie – I’d have to rehearse on weekends. And, we rehearsed it maybe on like five different days and we practised it and tried to get it really tight.”
“What’s always weird is that you never practice in the actual outfits. And then when you get on set and you’re in the hair and makeup and the actual outfits you’re like oh this feels a bit different to when I was just doing it in athleisure.”
“Obviously, I’m a huge Britney fan and I’ve watched all her film clips, I listened to her music. I just tried to channel her energy.
“We do so many takes and in a couple of them, our direct Alex Hardcastle was like, that was actually like I thought for a second that was Britney.”
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