Here’s What Britney Spears Did on the Set of Her ‘Crossroads’ Movie To Freak Out Her Security Team
Britney Spears’ Crossroads presented some unique challenges. That’s because a lot of the road trip dramedy was filmed in, and from, moving vehicles. Predictably, there were some delays. According to Spears’ co-star Anson Mount, one of them thoroughly “freaked out” the singer’s security team.
The director said the cast wouldn’t listen to her
Spears stars as Lucy Wagner, an overachieving teen who goes on a spontaneous road trip with her two childhood friends Mimi (Taryn Manning) and Kit (Zoe Saldana).
Their ride is Ben (Anson Mount), a mysterious ‘bad boy’ with a past; and Lucy’s love interest. It’s his yellow convertible that gets them out of Georgia, across the country, and into Los Angeles.
Shooting the heavily car-centered movie was a challenge, it turns out, according to director Tamra Davis.
“When we were doing all those car things, I’m in a truck with all the equipment, following them with all the cameras and the lights,” Davis said, according to the MTV docu-series Making the Movie: Crossroads. “And they’re on their own, in the car with walkie-talkies, and they never would listen to me!”
Moreover, Manning had a few of her own ideas.
Britney Spears and Taryn Manning tried to rescue a puppy on the movie set of ‘Crossroads’
Britney Spears and Taryn Manning tried to stop the convertible while shooting the 2002 movie to rescue a stray dog. That’s according to Mount, who recalled the incident in Making the Movie.
“The camera was on a moving truck in front of the car, and I was driving through this tiny little town in Louisiana,” Mount told MTV. “And we hadn’t really notified anybody that this was happening. So people were slowly catching on that Britney Spears is in a movie, and it’s being filmed in our town.”
Mount continued, saying that a stray animal in the road caught the eye of Manning.
“All of a sudden, there’s a stray puppy on the road, and Taryn ran out and grabbed the dog,” Mount explained. “The camera truck took off, and we took a wrong turn somewhere. So all of a sudden, I’m driving around with Britney Spears and a stray dog, and people are looking, and people are starting to show up.”
Furthermore, Mount said the snafu separated Spears from her security detail — that’s a big deal because the pop star was at the height of her fame at the time. “Her security is nowhere to be found, and they’re freaking out, I know,” Mount said.
In short, Manning’s unplanned stop may have caused some confusion on set, but it didn’t slow anything down.
Taryn Manning said she enjoyed the time with Britney Spears and the cast on the ‘Crossroads’ movie set
In a September 2021 statement to Us Weekly, Manning recalled the good times with Mount, Saldana, and Spears.
“I have not spoken to Britney in 10 years, but we had an amazing time on Crossroads,” she told the magazine. “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 and am so happy about the progress of this week. Nothing but love for Brit!”
Manning was referring to the Britney Spears conservatorship hearing on September 28, 2021, and the fact that her father, Jamie Spears, finally removed himself from control over her estate.
To sum up, there’s no official word on what ultimately happened with the stray puppy. But the cast certainly had a good time making Crossroads movie memories from the seat of their famous car.
