With the toss of a wild mane of bleached blonde hair, the Australian actress Natasha Bassett has transformed into the pop star diva Britney Spears in an upcoming biopic which chronicles Spear's troubled rise to fame and her sudden flame-out.
The made-for-television movie, Britney Ever After, also seemingly shows Bassett with her tresses shorn, at the nadir of Spear's public struggles including failed marriages and relationship breakdowns, her subsequent hospitalisation and the placement of her affairs under a court-ordered guardian.
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"I'm not going to sugar coat it and say everything was fine," Bassett narrates in the extended biopic trailer promoting the Spear's life story to debut on U.S. television on February 18. "Because it wasn't."
The role of the Grammy Award winner is Bassett's biggest breakthrough part since the actor's outing as 50s era starlet Gloria DeLamore in the Cohen Brother's film, Hail, Caesar.
![Actress Natasha Bassett plays troubled Britney.](/web/20170202055718im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/3/x/k/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu3msd.png/1486007478873.jpg)
In the small screen snippets, Bassett is shown to inhabit Spear's on energetic stage persona and shows a strong likeness to Spears in character.
In an interview with Vogue magazine last May Bassett said she was looking forward to playing "complex" characters.
"When you create something that truly affects people - whether it makes them laugh, cry or get really ticked off, whatever it may be - there's nothing better than trying to make some sense of the human condition through different complex characters and being able to share that with other people," she said.
Spears is currently promoting her ninth studio album, Glory, and has not cooperated with the makers.
![See the likeness? Sydney actor Natasha Bassett plays Britney Spears in a new Lifetime film.](/web/20170202055718im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/1/j/4/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu3msd.png/1486007478873.jpg)
Bassett professed sympathy for someone in the spotlight in an interview with the New York Daily News.
"Her entire life, she's been chased by paparazzi and she's constantly being scrutinised and in the public eye, so it's not normal," she said. "I really appreciated how strong she is. Emotionally, the way she got through the constant pressures that she was faced with is admirable."