Justin Timberlake and Lance Bass Were Jealous of Other *NSYNC Members’ Star Wars Appearance

NSYNC reunited for the first time in 10 years at this year’s MTV VMAs to much celebration, and that was followed by the reveal of their first song together in over 20 years. That song is titled Better Place and appears on the soundtrack to Trolls Band Together, and to promote the song, the group has been making the media rounds. That includes appearing on Hot Ones, where host Sean Evans asked the group to confirm whether or not they had almost appeared in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. It turns out that was true, but only Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez, and Joey Fatone were cast, and Justin Timberlake and Lance Bass revealed they were jealous when they found out.

Evans asked, “Was it true that NSYNC was cast as Jedi Warriors in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones?” “We were the three,” Kirkpatrick said. Chasez added, “A few of us, yeah.” Timberlake remembers getting the call that the other three were in the film, saying, “I think I remember us getting the call like ‘you’re never going to believe what happened. We are Stormtroopers… no Jedis.” “We had to learn a bit of sword choreography,” Chasez said.

“Me and Lance were so butt hurt,” Timberlake said, with Bass adding “Yeah but they got cut out anyways so.” Timberlake said, “When you guys got cut out we were like (laughs)”. The group laughed, and then Fatone said, “The dumbest thing though is that as we were doing these scenes, you are going ‘voom’ ‘voom’ like an idiot.” Kirkpatrick wishes they had the video, saying, “I wish they had video, they had the video of us somewhere, well I’m sure they do because they filmed it.”

“I’ve asked Richard McCallum, the producer Richard McCallum, where’s the footage and I know he has it so let’s get that footage please because I want to see it,” Fatone said. Bass then said, “Well didn’t the Star Wars fans go crazy when they edited that out? They did not like that.”

While the Star Wars roles didn’t work out, the group is now back together at least for the time being to promote their song Better Place. In an interview with Yahoo, Fatone said the reunion happened pretty organically. “Justin came up to us about the idea and … it only fit right for us to do this together as a group. I think the message, the meaning, everything just all around, came to him,” Fatone said. 

“Because you got to really think about it, too, that he’s the youngest one of the group. In general though, think about it this way: He is at the top pinnacle of his career, for many years now,” Fatone said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Nobody’s upset about that. We all love it and we all support it. But when you’re going to go backwards… do you think you want to go backwards? If you go back, would you want to split it four ways with other people again, or do your business that you built up yourself?”

Fatone also addressed the group breaking up after their third album and how he felt at the time. “I was not blindsided by the breakup; I was more blindsided as far as him coming out with music and not knowing that he was going to go and do an actual album/tour thing,” Fatone explains. “It was more of, ‘Hey, I’m going to do some music, and then we’ll get back together.’ That’s what that was. And it wasn’t him – it was the record company. If it was him, then I’d understand it. When you’re younger, you think it’s that person. But then you look at the whole bigger scheme of things, and you go, ‘Oh, that’s why I wasn’t there for that.’ That’s the business. OK, I get it.”

What do you want to see happen next for NSYNC? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things Star Wars and music with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!