Brittany Snow Reveals The Audition She ‘Bombed’ Before Landing The Part

By Sarah Tate

November 19, 2025

Photo: Dana Pleasant for iHeartRadio

Brittany Snow may be a seasoned professional actor but even she gets nervous in auditions. In fact, she once "bombed" an audition for a beloved movie before a mystical encounter led to her ultimately getting the part.

During an appearance on Wednesday's (November 19) episode of the Las Culturistas podcast, Snow described herself as a "pretty anxious auditioner" and explained to hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang how she initially "bombed" her audition for Amber Von Tussle in Hairspray when she was around 20 years old.

"I really, really did badly. I got in my head," she said. "And I knew I could do it, and I knew I was right for the role and Laura Bell [Bundy, who portrayed Von Tussle in the 2002 stage musical] already gave me the stamp of approval."

Despite the poor audition, Snow eventually had another shot at the role thanks to an interaction with a psychic two years prior.

"The psychic told me that I was going to play the daughter of an iconic blonde woman who was very famous," she said. "And she was like, 'It's going to be two years from now,' and I was like that's so specific... I put that away, I write it down."

After the first audition went poorly, she spoke with Hairspray director Adam Shankman who reflected on how perfect she would be for the role, especially after the "iconic" Michelle Pfeiffer signed on to play Velma Von Tussle. That's when Snow's memory of the psychic clicked.

"I was like, wait a second, I need to go back to my journal. And I looked up and by the time that Hairspray would have come out, it would have been two years," she said. "So I called Adam back and I said, 'I know this is crazy, but a psychic told me that I was going to play the daughter of an iconic, legendary blonde woman and it's too weird for this not to be true, can I just audition again?' And he was like, 'You're the craziest human being alive. You've either lost your mind or this is gonna be a really funny story one day.'"

Fortunately for Snow, her second audition went much better than the first.

"And you know why I nailed it is because I had that sort of voice in my head, psychic or not, that was like, this is meant to be. You already have it," she said, adding, "It doesn't matter if you believe in psychics or not, who cares. What really goes to show is that what really helped me was the fact that I wanted to take a chance on myself. I knew I could do it and I just needed another opportunity and I needed to be my own, like, biggest cheerleader and to do it again."

She continued, "I think that everybody going into something like an audition with the foresight that it's already in your hands, you just have to take it... that's the recipe for doing well in any sort of pressure situation."

Snow went on to secure the role the 2007 movie musical, which is based on the stage musical, joining the star-studded cast, including Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes, Queen Latifah, John Travolta, Christopher Walken, and James Marsden.

On Las Culturistas, Rogers and Yang "get into the hottest pop-culture moments of the day" and even hang out with special guests like Sarah Paulson, Jennifer Lawrence, Reese Witherspoon, and Lady Gaga, to name a few. Check out more episodes of the Las Culturistas podcast at iHeart.com.

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