Newly minted well-respected actor Justin Timberlake just finished a serious chat with Terry Gross on her long-running NPR talk show “Fresh Air.” Sample line, in reference to “SexyBack”: “I felt like if everyone ever took dance music and applied a rock and roll frame of mind to it, with bravado and rock star–ism, that’s what we were trying to capture.” (Can’t you just hear the glasses?) The pair talked about many things — The Social Network, Timberlake’s start on Star Search, his time with ‘N Sync, but sadly, not his forthcoming Yogi Bear — but the conversation turned really highbrow when FutureSex/LoveSounds came up.

To wit:

Suddenly, we understand why he’s not in any rush to make new music. He’s always been an actor.

“I find that every time I write music or come up with an idea for a record, that whatever it is I come up with, I feel like I have a specific aesthetic that goes with it. Very much like creating a character … For example, my last album FutureSex/LoveSounds was a character I created. Obviously, not the same way that David Bowie would create Ziggy Stardust. But something that aspired to be a character … I saw some mixture between 007 character, but also an ode to Fred Astaire in a way. Or Gene Kelly. I think I saw it as an ode to that, but how could I take that and make it sound modern? So when the aesthetic came into play, I wanted to play the part. I did feel like I was creating a character, that could maybe fall into a Kubrick film, or a Helmut Newton photo.”
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