Amid Britney Spears’ rise to the pop charts, she made her feature film debut in 2002’s Crossroads.
“I was much more interested in the young woman that I met than the image that people had of her,” screenwriter Shonda Rhimes — who penned the script before her Grey’s Anatomy and Bridgerton fame — recalled to Vice’s Broadly in 2016. “[Britney] was a person, and I don’t think anyone at the time was looking at her — because it’s such a misogynistic society — as a person. The idea that we could portray her as a three-dimensional young woman was interesting to me.”
The film, directed by Tamra Davis, followed three high school graduates, played by Spears, Zoe Saldana and Taryn Manning, as they road-tripped across the country from their Louisiana hometown to Los Angeles. In the process, they each discover their own identities and deepen their friendship.
“I have not spoken to Britney in 10 years, but we had an amazing time on Crossroads,” Manning — who played Mimi — exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2021. “We spent months in the car that we took ‘cross country’ sharing stories, joking, laughing and had a friendship for years, especially while filming. I wish her only the best!”
Scroll below to see what the Crossroads cast has been up to since the flick was made:
