Joey Fatone
October 6, 2001

JF: I don't think I would want to know anything; who knows what would happen? [laughs] Lightning would strike or something. I don't know, just what's in store for me for the future.

Q: What's the most romantic thing someone's ever done for you?

JF: The coolest one was a Valentine's Day, and the girl cooked me dinner, and we had a nice little candlelight dinner at her house.

Q: Would you like to do more acting in the future?

JF: Sure. It was fun.

Q: Which do you enjoy more, performing with *NSYNC or acting?

JF: Both. [laughs] They're both a lot of fun. It's cool because when you do the other one, it's an outlet--it's like a little vacation, if you will, because it's something different, and you're able to come back to *NSYNC and work on songs.

Q: So do you really have a love for '80s metal?

JF: Yeah, in a sense I do. I actually have Journey's Greatest Hits--obviously '70s and '80s--that I listen to all the time, believe it or not.

MD: But is that really metal?

[Everyone laughs]

JF: Not that heavy--but to some people it is, depending on your age, like "Oh, that's like rock-n-roll!" [laughs] But it's not really. Heavy metal? Oh yeah, a little bit of Def Leppard, a little bit of Guns 'N Roses and stuff like that.

Q: But it doesn't cause you to kick over amps.

JF: [laughs] No.

MD: Or kick women, for that matter.

JF: [laughs] Yeah! True.

Q: This "The Big Guys" group in high school, what was that?

JF: It was an acapella group; we did '50s doo wop music. It was me and my friends Erik [Garbus], Joel [Herman], and a kid by the name of Fonsi [Rodriguez]. And Fonsi--is name is Luis; they call him "Luis Fonsi"--he's actually an artist on Universal; he's doing really well. He's originally from Puerto Rico.

Q: Do you plan on singing with Luis again?

JF: We talked about it; it's possible.

Q: I'm very proud of him.

JF: He's doing really good; he's doing really well. Actually, The Big Guys went over to Puerto Rico and sang with him at one of his concerts. We went over there and did that.

Q: Can you talk a little about these two movies you have coming up?

JF: One is an independent. They changed the name, and I don't know the exact name. It was The Brothers. I think they changed it because a movie came out called The Brothers. [laughs] I play a real small role in that, really tiny. I play a liquor clerk that gets beat up.

[Joey's cell phone starts ringing]

JF: Why is my phone ringing? It shouldn't be ringing; I'm sorry. [to assistant while handing over the phone] Put it on vibrate or shut it off. And the other one is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was really cool.

Q: It's an interesting title.

[Everyone laughs]

JF: Yeah, if you see the movie you know why. [laughs] It's really cool; it was a great movie. That was one of the first things I ever did as far as film is concerned. It's with Playtone Productions, Tom Hanks' company. I got to work with people such as Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantini, Andrea Martin from SCTV, also John Corbett. So it was really cool.

[Joey's cell phone rings again]

JF: I guess you didn't shut it off. [laughs]

Q: And who do you play in that?

JF: I play a guy by the name of Angelo. I play the lead's cousin, basically. It was a lot of fun.

Q: Would you like to do the dramatic lead?

JF: Oh yeah, I would love to. I wouldn't say "lead," but I would love to do a lot of dramatic roles in something completely different. It gives me a chance to expand my horizons of acting, if you will. It will be very exciting.

Q: Did you do a lot of ad libbing in this? It seems like you did.

JF: Yeah.

Q: What scenes did you come up with?

JF: In the Chyna scene, the arm wrestling thing I came up with because people were always saying, "Oh, you're dating Chyna," and all this kind of thing.

[Everyone laughs]

JF: Me and her are friends, so I thought it would be a funny thing to in the montage that all the dates are me and her are arm wrestling. That was pretty funny. It was weird because it was ad libbing, but then again the writers were so wonderful, and there were so many rewrites. We had these two writers. Every time I would say, "Hey, this would be a cool idea; maybe we could add this line here or there, or do this and that," and they were so like, "Sure. That's great; that's funny; that works." So they threw those lines in there, little one-liners that I had or whatever the case may be. It was a lot of fun; they gave me a lot of freedom--especially Eric Bross, our director. He's wonderful.

Q: Can you tell us something you've learned about yourself over the past year?

JF: How big your nose looks onscreen.

[Everyone laughs]

JF: It's huge. It's tremendous. [laughs] Obviously with any years going by, no matter how old you are, you're always learning and growing, I think. For me, learning to do a character and to be silly--you learn to do that. You watch and study and develop your own things here and there. Comedy is sometimes even harder to do than drama is. It's all within the timing and delivery and the way you approach it. It's sometimes a difficult thing, believe it or not. Sometimes you think something could be hilarious, and you see it onscreen, and it's like, "What were they doing? It's stupid! There goes everything in the movie!" [laughs]

Q: You do a lot of singing in this movie.

JF: Who would've knew, huh?

[Everyone laughs]

Q: Does this mean that we're gonna hear more from you in the next *NSYNC album?

JF: Who knows? If the song is right, and the producer wants me to sing that--sure, why not? It was weird because [the movie] gave me a chance to do different things and for people to be like, "Oh, he really can sing!"--as far as the ending [song] is concerned. But the other ones, like "Pour Some Sugar on Me" or the parody of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"--those were fun things, though, because it was like you're at a bar, and whatever came out, basically, when I was recording in the studio, that's what we used. It was just funny; it's not the greatest.

Q: Are you writing any for the next album?

JF: It's possible. We haven't written anything yet, honestly. We're just taking some time off. Obviously, I've been doing promotion with this; if I was completely off, maybe I would be writing something. But we have another tour coming up next year, around April. It's a totally new tour; we're downsizing it from stadiums to arenas. It's going to be a lot of fun. A lot of the songs that we didn't do the last tour we're doing this tour coming up, so it's going to be a whole new show.

Q: Being from Brooklyn, how has the New York incident affected you?

JF: First it was devastating. Then it was nerve-wracking because the minute my mom called me on the phone and told me what happened--I was in Florida; we were home--I ran downstairs, watched it on TV, and tried to call my friends and family. I couldn't get a hold of them because you could not call to New York, so it was just so nerve-wracking. One of my friends is a firefighter out there, and he's been helping out there. I'm like, "How can you do that? You must be completely an emotional wreck to see all this." He goes, "Well, believe it or not, you'd be surprised what you do and the bravery that you have to help people out, and to come together to do that." My immediate family and relatives, thank goodness, are all right. But one friend of mine, actually he passed away: this guy Dan, he was one of our carpenters and also a Backstreet Boys carpenter. He was on his way home, and he was in one of the plane crashes. And one of our bodyguards, his sister was in the building as well. She got a couple of third-degree burns, but she got out OK. It seems like everyone, almost, in the United States knew somebody in that building because of all the companies that worked there. It's just a devastating thing, and it's great how everybody's been coming together and looking in a positive way. I think what's cool about this movie is it has nothing to do with anything [bad] like that. It brings everybody, at least for 80 minutes, to not think about that. That's what great about this movie, I think: it takes you on a little journey; it shows a lot of sides of romantic comedy, about a love interest and wanting to find that love-at-first-sight girl that you saw once and that was it.

[Everyone laughs]

JF: So that's what's good about it. That's why I like this movie; it's such a feel good movie.

Q: What kind of impact do you want this movie to have on your fans?

JF: Just enjoy it. It's not so much of an impact or a learning lesson--I mean, there is a lesson to be learned in the end. Basically the whole thing is if you have love and passion for something so much, don't just give up on it. That's what happened with Kevin; Kevin had that love and passion to find that girl by putting up posters, and he did the whole ad thing. With Rod, he had the love and passion to write music and was always afraid to put his music out there, and then finally he had the guts because he saw what Kevin did.

MD: What kind of films do you like in general?

JF: Everything, from horror to action. My favorite movie of all time is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so that gives you a wide range.

[Everyone laughs]

MD: The widescreen DVD is coming out.

JF: I got it. I got a cassette tape of it already, the 30th anniversary edition.

MD: What other types of films would you like to do as an actor?

JF: Whatever comes to the table--if it's something that's a great script or a great director, obviously. I would love to do some fantasy, some action, some horror or suspense.

Q: If you were in that situation [in the movie], would you have gotten the girl's number?

JF: I would've gotten the girl's number. Kevin's an idiot. [laughs]

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