AMERICA’S GOLDEN BOY Mr Justin Timberlake put paid to any rumours that he is about to hit the studio to record any time soon.

Timberlake is currently the cover of Entertainment Weekly, to coincide with the US release week of the box-office topping Facebook film, The Social Network.

In the feature piece, he is evasive on hurrying back to the recording studio for a follow-up to 2006’s Futuresex/Lovesounds. He says:

“Does a painter make a painting because he has to make it by December 21st? No, he doesn’t. It happens when it pours out of him. That’s how music is for me.”

Aside from assuming that all painters are male, perhaps we can forgive Timberlake’s oversight in his own music – because it doesn’t mean that he isn’t still writing music behind the scenes.

“I never stop making music. I don’t know what else to tell you, except that I just don’t know [in] what capacity I want to be involved anymore.”

EW responds with a shocked comment: “That sounds very final.”

Justin: “No. All I’m saying is, in very simple terms, I’ll know when I know. And until I know, I don’t know.

Hundreds of press articles are churning as you read this with the sentiment mainly composed of ‘JUSTIN ON POP HIATUS’ or questioning headlines which are only a tiny bit sensationalist…

Seven years ago, the Timberlake empire’s strike on all the world’s music media was impossible to avoid. The ex-N’Sync, good boy curls. That vocal range. The glossy, and sometimes dark music videos – all everywhere.

He earned six Grammys from his solo efforts, ditched Britney (which may have made her go a little wild) around the same time he became the sweetest export since Lucky Charms, Oreos and Pop Tarts were being sold in Selfridges as posh food items.

 

 

But for anyone who has kept a sexy eye back for Timberlake’s career, it is probably no surprise that he has returned to the screen, only this time, to the silver one after finding more artistic gratification in film.

Having already appeared in Alpha Dog, Black Snake Moan, The Love Guru and Shrek the Third as the voiceover artist for Artie, the squire better known as Arthur Pendragon; Justin’s acting CV is bulking up each year. Two films to be released at over the Christmas season starring JT are already in post-production, including another cartoon voiceover role for him as Boo Boo Bear in the new Yogi-Bear film, Yogi.

The Social Network is already widely touted as an Oscar nominee, and it is fair to say that this will be the one which fully establishes him as a film star. But he’s not the first kids’-TV-to-pop-to-cinema prodigy to have done so. The most pioneering example is Will Smith, who saw his blockbuster breakthrough in 1996 with Independence Day.

2011 could be the massive comeback Justin has been waiting for: one with an entirely different career.