Time Out with Britney Spears (1999 TV Special)

Britney Spears: Self

Quotes 

• Britney Spears : When I was little, I always... I didn't say, you know, "I'm gonna be a superstar," or this is what I was, um, gonna do, but I was always doing shows, like... like... I... my friends would come over, and we'd make these big shows, and I was so serious about it! You know, and I was the director, and... like... we would do stuff like that all the time, and then, you know, when I grew out of that stage, then I just got really involved with just listening to music all the time. And then, when I was on "The Mickey Mouse Club", and I started performing and I started singing, that's when I realized, you know, I have a major love for music and this is what I wanna do, cause I just felt like it was here and that's what I wanted to do, but yeah, there was times when I was younger when we'd have career day, and I was like "I'm gonna be a lawyer," or, you know, I mean, I would say stuff like that, but, um, I think I was always... I always knew here that this is what I... I wanted to do what I'm supposed to do.

• [talking about the production of the music video for "Hit Me Baby One More Time"] 

  Britney Spears : Okay, this is my first video I ever shot, and, um, it was really, really hectic and nerve-wracking because it was my first video, and I was... I was really nervous about how the end results were gonna turn out.

  [behind the scenes footage of "Hit Me Baby One More Time" is shown with the filming of the scene where Britney bounces a basketball] 

  Britney Spears : I remember the first day I was on the set, um, of... when we were shooting "Baby One More Time". There was, like, all these people there, and I was like, "Oh my goodness!" I didn't realize it was gonna be that, you know, big of a production and everything with all these people running around, and... it was like "Oh my goodness!" And I was so nervous; I mean, even though you don't really have to sing, when you're, you know, in front of the camera, but the first time you have to be in front of the camera and you start singing, it's a little nerve-wracking because all these people are around you, but after those first two minutes, you're cool. You're like, "whatever". But, um, it was a lot of fun, because, um, w... we had to dance, like, all day. It was really tiring, but, um, me and the dancers, we goofed off the whole time. It was really, really cool. And, um, I was kind of nervous to see how it was all gonna turn out because it was my first video and I wanted everything to be really, really cool cause I knew this song was really cool and I knew all the footage that we had was good, but, uh, just combining everything together and just singing as one finished product, I was really... kind of nervous. And I remember seeing it, and, um, they brought it to the hotel, and I was doing a radio permission to her. And, um, me and my friend, Felicia, we saw it and were like,

  [gets overly excited, raises her voice for a bit, and talks very fast] 

  Britney Spears : "OH MY GOODNESS! LET'S REWIND IT, WE GOTTA WATCH IT AGAIN!"

  [lowers her voice] 

  Britney Spears : We started jumping on the bed like total goobs, but, um, it was fun. It was really cool. To my surprise, everything turned out really, really cool, and here's "Baby One More Time".

  [shows some behind-the-scenes footage of "Hit Me Baby One More Time"] 

  Britney Spears : [in the outfit she wore at the start of the music video for "Hit Me Baby One More Time"]  I thought it would, like, be really cool, you know, the kids being in school, wanting to get out, you know, and just like, hanging around, you know, going, like outside to the parking lot, which, everyone does that at every school; they go to the parking lot and everyone is just talking to all their friends, got something. That's kind of what it's like. Dancing is included, so it's like a lot of energy, so I thought it would be really cool.

• Britney Spears : I filmed a Disney special, and it was really cool because I got to a see a lot of the people, um, from "The Mickey Mouse Club" that I worked with. It was really, really, a lot of fun to do, so, here it is, the Disney special.

  [grins] 

• Britney Spears : [Britney Spears' final filmed sketch]  ... the staircase, and... basically, everything, so, it was really cool, though, because I had, like, my vision of it, and, um, my first day to come in, and the studios were... for rehearsal. I walked in, and... it was the most amazing feeling because my band was up there playing, and they had the lights going, and it was my first time to see my own stage, and I was just like...

  [gasp] 

  Britney Spears : Oh my goodness. I... I wanted to cry; it was so cool.

• Britney Spears : When I was, like, 8 years old, I, like, began singing, and, um, I went to, like, "The Mickey Mouse Club". I did that, it was, like, with a bunch of kids; it was a lot of fun. And I, um, came to New York, and I did an off-Broadway musical called "Ruthless". I met an entertainment lawyer, and he sent me to New York when I was 15 at the time. And I was so nervous, you know, and I, um, got up in front of a bunch of his executives at Jive, and I sang, and he signed me, so that's how I'm here today.

• [first lines] 

  Britney Spears : That's my real name. My name is Britney Jean Spears.

  [laughs] 

  Britney Spears : A country name...

  [a picture of Britney Spears as a child is shown] 

  Britney Spears : Well, I grew up in a really, really small town. It's called Kentwood, and it's like an hour away from New Orleans in Southern Louisiana.

  [more photos of her childhood years are shown, and this goes on and on throughout the segment] 

  Britney Spears : I'm a southern girl, and I'm used to caged-in food and, um... blues music, and... I love where I come from, because my neighborhood... I have, like... all my friends all around me, and like... every day, in the summer time, it was so convenient because we would, uh, all go to one person's house and play video games, and just... um... do slipper... you know... slip and s... slide, and go-karts; we just had so much fun. I had a wonderful childhood. Um, the population of my hometown is, like, twelve hundred people, so it's, like, really small. It's really, really small. Literally, you don't have to lock your doors where I'm from, and it's just, you know, it's, like, a nice home feeling, so... Was I popular in high school? Um, I don't think so. I mean... I mean, to a certain extent, I mean, I had my friends that were, um... Actually, I left school, kind of, when you started getting, like, you know, of a popular crowd, like in high school, 'cause, like, I was in the ninth grade, and...

  [a photo of Britney Spears in front of a school bus is shown] 

  Britney Spears : that's when, you know, you started going to homecomings and proms and stuff like that. And that's right when I started... Um, right when this elder guy has me to, um, homecoming, I thought I was everything, you know, not that I was popular then, or whatever. But then, after that, you know, I left and I started singing and I started doing... now... doing with my career, but, um, I wouldn't say I was a nerd or a dork, but I wouldn't say I was, like, the cheerleader or popular person, 'cause I wasn't a cheerleader. I was always, really, doing my own thing. I was always, like, reading books and stuff like that.

• Britney Spears : [talking about Max Martin and his work on her songs]  Max is as nice as he is talented. He's really a great guy, and I'm very thankful to be over at work with him. He's great, and, um, yeah. In Sweden, we went there, and we... it was really busy. We went there for like 10 days, we've got... we got a lot done, and it was just great. We just, you know, went in there and sang. It felt good.

  Max Martin : The way I work is to have good song, you know. It always has to be good songs, cause without that, you know, you can't do anything. You know, like I said about her voice to have some flavor in it; it's like straight pop, pop music with the flavor, you know, what we call R&B in Sweden, what you guys think is pop, you know.

  Britney Spears : My style of music is, um, pop. I like pop music, just, you know, fun, and I love, um, funky, hard beats, you know. Of course, I love ballads, you know. I love ballads, but, um, I love stuff that I can perform well and get on stage and dance and have fun and get the audience into it.

  Max Martin : The album I think's gonna be... very... easy to understand, although cer... the vocals is gonna be... nothing like... I'd say technically, that's gonna be great, you know. It's not gonna be, like a sing along easy record,

  [scats] 

  Max Martin : but the songs are... pop, and the vocals are... so.. you know, soulful, I think.

  [recording footage of "I Will Be There" is shown] 

• Britney Spears : [talks about several songs from her album]  "Soda Pop" is, um, such a fun song. When you hear it, you're just like "Oh, I wanna go outside," and just, you know, party. It's like a really, um, fun summer song. Everyone, you know, just, in your car, listening to, you know. It's a great song. I like it, it's a lot of fun. "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" is talking about, um... two couples, you know, that have, um, been apart, you know, and, and... always that she's gonna love him, you know, no matter what, you know, and like, she... he was her first love, you know. And um, there's something that, you know, she'll always remember him and always love him. "Email My Heart" is like a song everyone can relate to, you know. Everyone, um, has been doing emails, and... email... and it's "Email My Heart", so it's, uh... um... everyone can relate to that song. "Sometimes", um... is a very nice song. It's really sing along, you know. Everyone can sing along to it and it's just a really easy, laid back, cool song. "Hit Me Baby One More Time"; it's a real funky attitude song, you know. Everyone can sing along to it; it's like a lot of fun to sing. Felt like the type of music I'm singing is it's pop and you can have ATTITUDE, you know, and be funky--

  [shows footage of Britney Spears recording the song "I Will Be There"] 

  Britney Spears : So my album is mainly focused towards funky and fun, happy sing along music.

• Britney Spears : When I was in the 9th grade, that's when I, um, it was in the middle of the year, and, um, I decided I wanted to sing again, and it was really weird that my entertainment lawyer from New York had called me up, and he was like "Come to New York!", so I had to fly to New York by myself for the day, which is a big deal when you're, you know, like 15, so I flew to New York. And, um... I sang for several different record labels. And, um, it was just really, really nerve-wracking, because it was like all these people just staring there, looking at you, saying "Well, I wonder what she could do," you know. And then, after that day was over with, it was like "Whew, thank goodness." And I flew out that, you know, that same day. Yeah. And I totally remember that day cause I had shoes on,

  [shows her fingers scaling the size of her head] 

  Britney Spears : were like *this tall*, and I wasn't used to walking in New York. And my man... um... Larry, the person I was with was wys... You know, they walk so fast, and I was like, "Oh my God!" I remember when I got home that night; I was just like, "Rub my feet, mom!" Anyways, but, um... yeah. That's when I left.

• [about being a child performer, going to New York, and working on "The Mickey Mouse Club"] 

  Britney Spears : How did I get into "Star Search"? Um, well, actually, they had a little audition in New Orleans, and I went in when I was like really young, before I went even to New York or anything, and, um, auditioned, and they... they called me back, and... That was a really, really long time ago. Um, I just remember when I was there, it was like my first time to ever be on TV, and I was so young, I really didn't think... You know, I was like 8 years old. Actually, I was 9. Well, the first time I auditioned, um, I had a friend, and her name was Britney too, and... We both danced with each other, and we were like "Mama, do you know there's a big open call for the Mickey Mouse Club in Atlanta?" We heard their friends,

  [a picture of Britney Spears as a child with a "Future Mouseketeer" shirt is shown] 

  Britney Spears : like "We wanna go! We wanna go!" and she was like "No, I'm not driving all that way, you know, to Atlanta." So we bagged them for like two weeks, and finally they're like "Okay, we'll take you." So, they... we went there, and there was like this HUGE, you know, open call

  [shuts her eyes] 

  Britney Spears : and we weren't really expecting anything. And, um, eh well, they narrowed it down to like six kids, and me and her, we were one of the six kids, and the casting director was like "You know what? I think you're too young." And that's when they were hiring people like Kerri Russell; they were I think five years older than me, and like J.C. it was like, um, you know, an older set of kids. They're like "You know, you're too young, but I really think it would be, you know, cool if you went to New York cause I have an agency there that I want you to check out." So we were like, "whatever," you know, and we went home, and I waited six months before we got the courage to go up there and experience it, because I'm from a small town and it's just really unheard of just to up and go to New York and people were telling my mom like, "You're crazy!" We may... We did it, and we went up there, and it was hard at first, because I had to make new friends, and... but, um, something about New York, you know. When you first get there, it's kind of... scary, but it kind of grows on you, like the energy in the whole New York thing. I ended up loving it. And, um, I got a job doing an off-Broadway play called "Ruthless", and it was based on the movie "The Bad Seed", and... It was, it was a lot of hard work because I was the main character, and um... and I had to... you had to sing, and you had to dance, and you had to act, and it was every night. And it was just like, so monotonous, and it was just, oh. But then, um, I kind of got tired, and I... I was gonna have to perform on Christmas night, and I was... I was getting, you know, really upset, you know, cause I wanted Santa Claus, you know. I wanted to be home with family, and, you know, I was... I think I was like 11 years old. And, um, so I told my mom, cause she always told me "Whenever you want to pack up and just go home, let's do it." So I was like "You know what? I gotta go home, you know. I gotta go home and be with my family again," cause I totally missed it.

  [scratches her nose] 

  Britney Spears : So, um... so we packed up and everything, but the day before we left audition again for "The Mickey Mouse Club", they had another, you know, audition for it; it was like... This is like two years later. And that's when I got it. So I got to go home and experien Christm... experience Christmas, then I, um, waited like three months before I started doing "The Mickey Mouse Club". And "The Mickey Mouse Club", it was so much fun, it really was. I mean, there was like 20 kids on the show, and I mean, uh... we, um... we did it at MGM Studios. So it was like, we were right next to Magic Kingdom, and it was just like... It was so cool, cause like on our breaks, we'd just go and ride rides, and... It was so easy, really, cause you'd get up at like nine, you'd do your thing, and then you'd... you were off at six. And, I don't know. And I had like a lot of friends, and... It was so much fun.

  [a picture of Britney Spears from the photoshooting of the cover of her "Baby One More Time" album, surrounded by a pink glow, is shown] 

  Britney Spears : I did the show for two years, but it was six months out of each year that I had to go, so, when, um, we got finished filming, I would go home for six months for just being, you know, normal. You do have to make sacrifices sometimes for things that you really love, and, um, that's one of them, and I mean, just like that, and just me being away from my family, but I have to say I'd much rather be doing this. I mean, it's either that or, you know, not doing this, so I would mu... much rather be doing this.

• Britney Spears : [about the production of the music video for "You Drive Me Crazy"]  I had so much fun making my video, "Crazy". And actually, MTV... they got to come on the set, and just like, like, do a whole behind the scenes thing, and like check everything out.

  [behind the scenes footage from "You Drive Me Crazy" is shown] 

  Britney Spears : In "Crazy", we danced... all day. We were like... We were delirious and I'm like, "Oh lordy, give me a fan! Give me something!" But you want to be on every time because you know the camera's there, and it's just... it's really dur... and I'm like, "Oh, I got it. Give me some energy, give me some more coffee..."

• Britney Spears : [on being on the road and her concert tours]  Being on the road... um, I'd get up like around 12.

  [laughs] 

  Britney Spears : And then, um... sometimes, we'd drive, like 3 hours to the, you know, where the show is, or sometimes, it's like 10 minutes away, and we'll go to the, um, venue, and I'll have sound check, and I'll have press to do, and then I'll have like 2 hours of where we'll call it m... like, lockdown where I could just... totally get ready and just, you know, focus on what I'm about to go out there and do. And, um, and then, after the show, we'd get on the bus and we'd either drive or we'd go back to the hotel, and sometimes, in bigger cities, I have, like, press all day. And um, it's kind of, you know, crazy, and you're like, "AAAAAAAAHHHH!" before the show. I kind of really like touring, though. It's fun for me. A lot of people say it's like, the most grueling part, but um, I don't think so. Whereas before when I w... before this tour, I was doing a lot of promotion, like in Germany, overseas, and... that's the hard part. That's when you're like... I was like, I think Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, and two other places, all in like a week. And it's like, "oh, lordy". And like, you'd have to get up so early in the morning in London as well, you're like... get up early, and like, you... you're non-stop from the morning, 'til at night. And that's the crazy part. Like what I'm doing now, oh, I'm having the time of my life. I really am, cause I'm performing at night, I'm doing what I love to do, and just seeing those people out there, knowing that they all came to see you, and you're making them smile like that. That's just, like, the best feeling in the world. It's really cool.

• Britney Spears : [about the production of the music video for "Sometimes"]  "Sometimes" was a lot more laid back, I thought, because you're at this, you know, we're at a beach house, and we were located on this beautiful beach, and... it was just really laid back. I mean, even the first day when we did the dancing, we did the dance number like four or five times and we were finished, like "Oh, goodness!". And then the next day, it was just all beauty shot, so, that process was like really mellow and really laid back, but it was a pretty video.

  [behind the scenes footage of the music video for "Sometimes" is shown] 

  Britney Spears : Well, so far, they've used a lot of ideas on all the videos, which is really cool, because you actually get to see that on TV, and it's like, you know, it's really cool to see what your idea has come, you know, turns out to be like. But, um, I love the whole process, and, um, I've... I've worked with Nigel Dick on all my videos so far, and he's just really, really cool to work with, because he's really mellow and he's really open minded to what I want and, what... you know, I know he wants a good video, and I take that in... to consideration, and the results always turn out really cool.

• Britney Spears : [about how she feels when she goes on stage]  I always get nervous before I go on stage, especially my first performance. I couldn't even talk. People were coming up to me and talking to me, and I was just so nervous, because it was my first time to do my own show, and I was really nervous to how the crowd was gonna react, and there's like a lot of things in this show, like... like the quick changes; I just wanted everything to go smoothly. And, um, um, it was just... I was so nervous. But now, when I go on stage, I still get nervous, but it's more of like a good nervous energy. It's just enough to get me pumped up.

  [shows concert footage of Britney Spears dancing with a male dancer] 

  Britney Spears : When I get on stage, it totally goes away. Um, um... I'm so fine. It's just right before I go out there, and I'm like "Hold on! Oh God! Here I go! Oh goodness!" But then, once I'm performing, it's just like... I don't know. It just... I don't know. The crowd's there, and I'm there, and it's just like you're... I'm in this different world. It's really cool.

• Britney Spears : [on clothing for her music videos]  After all my video shoots, I've been so lucky and that; I get to keep the clothes, which is so much fun, cause I'm like, "Oh my goodness!", cause my first video shoot, which was "Baby One More Time", I had no idea they got to keep all these clothes. And um, I was so excited, and I was like "Oh my goodness!"

• Britney Spears : Some video shoots can go like really, really like... to 11:30, but I've been lucky, a lot of mine have been like, like nine or eight, so, so...

• Britney Spears : I've been so thankful and that I've had, like... wonderful make-up artist. I've just, um, recently found someone that I really, really love working with, and she is like a true artist. She's really... I don't know what she does to my eyes to make them look so... I mean, like, she'll do you and you're like,

  [deep voice] 

  Britney Spears : "That's me?"

  [normal voice] 

  Britney Spears : "Oh goodness! You know, I look really pretty!" She's really, really cool. But, um, she does stuff like, which is like putting eyeline, or like... um... w... like... um... like, way underneath your eyes, like right there, which really, really stand out, which I didn't know.

• Britney Spears : You usually have to get up really early because of hair make-up. You get up around 5:30 or six, and you go, and you're like non-stop.

• Max Martin : She's got an excellent voice. It's like, um... It's... it's... It's actually, quite, you know, whatever heard in The Backstreet Boys that they had, you know, excellent voice with a bit flavor in it, you know, good sense of, you know, catching the melody, performing it, like taking it to another level, cause that's... as a songwriter, that's what you're looking for. You do a song that songs good, and then if the artist can take that to another level, you know, that's the perfect thing. That's the perfect situation.

  Britney Spears : Making my first record is great. Yeah. It's a lot of fun, and, um, people really don't realize what, you know, where it goes into it.

• Britney Spears : The first time I sang in front of an audience was from my kindergarten graduation. I sang, um, "What Child is This?". It's like a Christian song, and... I... I must have been nervous because my head was turned... I was really young, and I was 5. And I had my head turned to the side the whole time I saw the... um... a videotape of it the last time I was home. I was so embarrassed, I was like "Oh, lord!". My head was like turned to the side like this, and I was like singing like this the whole time, cause I was so nervous, but it was really, really cute, and I reminded myself so much of my little sister.

• Britney Spears : I've been really lucky in working with the choreographers that I've been with. Darren Henson, he's the guy that I've been with for a while now. He did like, a lot of the stuff for the... on the tour. And, um, he did the video "Crazy", he did "Sometimes"...

• Britney Spears : [talking about music video director Nigel Dick]  Nigel, he's a type of director. The reason why I love him so much is because he's... he really listens to my ideas. I mean, like he's so easy to work with.

  Nigel Dick : I have a different life experience than Britney has, but it's great to know what's going on in her mind, and be able to making a video for her that is in a situation where she feels right in.

• [behind the scenes archive footage for the music video for "Sometimes"] 

  Nigel Dick : Um, here we are. We're in, uh, Malibu, California. We're on the set of Britney's second video for a song called "Sometimes".

  Britney Spears : Today, I got up really, really early this morning, and I'm not a morning person, so we got up at like 5:30, and we've just been at it ever since.

• Britney Spears : I'll always have ideas. I'm like, "You know, if I don't feel comfortable with the move," I totally speak up and say, "I don't feel comfortable doing that", or if I'm like, "You know, I don't like that there. Why don't we try something like this?". And sometimes, I even have my own input, and, uh, and my own style, my own choreography sometimes, but for the most part, they do everything.

• Britney Spears : [on how she enjoyed music and gymnastics in her childhood years]  My first love was, um, dancing, really, because when I was like three years old or four, my dad owned a gym, like I thought was like five miles from where I live. And, um, a dancing teacher came in and she started teaching class and my mom was like "Well, why don't you just, you know, start going?" So they had a little kids' class, so I started going, and I went there for like three or four years, then I went to gymnastics, and back and forth to gymnastics, it was an hour away, cause the gym was like really great; it was really, really good. And, um, I remember going back and forth every day, and in an hour drive, I would just like... My mom, um, like... most moms would just turn up the radio, and we would just sing the whole way. And not that, you know, radio is not really good training for your voice or whatever, but my mom, she could... you know, she realized I could sing, so she's like "Why don't we, you know, start, you know...", so she brought me to this, um, lady that was at a gym, and she was like "Listen to her!" Cause, you know, cause, she knew I could sing, but she wasn't really, and she was like, "Yeah! She can really sing good! You know, I need to start putting her in competitions and stuff." So from then on, I started, you know, singing in competitions and dancing in competitions and... just one thing led to another. Yeah, I sang in church, too. Yeah, I led the church choir.

• [first line of "Recording My First Album"] 

  Britney Spears : I've always had an interest, you know, in singing since I was really young. You know, listening to the radio, I've been really influenced by Mariah Carey; I love her melodies, she's a great songwriter; Whitney Houston, of course, and I like real old, bluesey music, too, you know, real soulful music, like down in New Orleans, where I'm from.