By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
October 28, 2001
Envy me, girls. I am in Lance Bass’s hotel room and guess what? He happens to be here, too.
Never mind that we’re surrounded by his assistant, makeup artist, a handful of publicists and a photographer. I think I saw love in his eyes.
OK, maybe it was just the sunlight reflecting from the windows of the W Hotel on Lake Shore Drive. But the point is, Bass–one-fifth of the phenomenally popular boy band ‘N Sync–is so charming he can even make cranky reporters smile.
It’s not that he’s particularly flirtatious. (That trait belongs to his bandmate Justin Timberlake.) But rather, he’s a polite Southern gentleman from Mississippi who still says y’all. He’s very nice.
“I’m a very normal guy,” he says. “I go home and everyone treats me like they did before I was in a band. My family won’t allow me to act up even if I wanted to. They won’t have any of that from anyone.”
Today, he is in Chicago promoting “On the Line,” which was partially filmed here. In his feature film debut, which is in its opening weekend, Bass stars as an advertising executive who has a history of striking out when it comes to women. It happened in high school and it happens again when he meets a fascinating, beautiful woman on the L. They have everything in common and are obviously attracted to each other.
But they’re both too shy to get each other’s number. Or name. Realizing he may have missed the opportunity of his lifetime, he posts flyers around the city searching for her.
Sound far-fetched? Consider this: A couple of weeks ago, country singer Buck Owens took out classified ads in Southern California newspapers asking for the woman he met–whose phone number he lost–to call him pronto. No word on whether Owens made a love connection, but you can guess how “On the Line” will turn out.
The movie was a labor of love for the 22-year-old pop star, whose bandmates describe him as the most business-minded of the group’s members. He formed the film production company A Happy Place a couple years after starting Free Lance Entertainment–his music development company. Besides starring in the film, Bass executive produced the picture along with Andrew Panay and ‘N Sync manager Johnny Wright.
He also made sure his bandmate Joey Fatone had a meaty co-starring role as a lovable, but oafish, wanna-be rock star. Two other members–Timberlake and Chris Kirkpatrick–make cameo appearances during the closing credits. But JC Chasez’s cameo as a bartender didn’t make the final cut.
“There are a lot of bad scripts out there,” Bass says. “My partner [Wendy Thorlakson] read the bulk of the scripts sent to us and filtered down the best ones to me. I read maybe 15 of them before I got to ‘On The Line,’ and when I read it, I knew it was the right one. It was so good and had every element I wanted in that first movie.”
Rated PG, the film is suitable for ‘N Sync’s young fans. But there’s an underlying sweetness to the story that’ll also fare well with couples looking for a date movie.
For Bass, who insists he doesn’t know all the words to his own band’s songs, the idea of memorizing lines for a movie was frightening. It was a challenge he wanted to overcome, though. He not only memorized his part, but also flawlessly recited back the names of all the presidents of the United States in each take for an integral scene in the movie.
“Once I got into character, it was easy,” he says. “I was surprised that I didn’t goof up, because I was really worried about that. But it became so natural and each take was very fresh. I loved the whole experience.”
Something girls are going to love is his shirtless scene during an early flashback.
“I didn’t know I was going to be shooting in just my boxer shorts until the day of filming,” he says, laughing. “I was told, ‘OK, take off your clothes.’ I would’ve worked out for at least a month had I known that was coming up! But it was fun. And it was all pretty innocent.
“With my company, we want to do great quality family films because that challenges your mind. I like that you’re not seeing nudity or blood in this movie. That’s a challenge for filmmakers these days.”
Shooting in Chicago was a no-brainer, he says, because it had all the requirements the film needed: a great mass transportation system, the Cubs and romance.
Romance?
“Yeah, I think Chicago is a really romantic city,” Bass says. “When I think of romantic places [in America], I think of New York, Seattle and Chicago. There also aren’t that many stories that have been coming out of Chicago lately, so we really wanted to do it here. I would love to spend more time here and there’s always the possibility that we’ll return to do another movie some day.”
That return won’t be next month, when he begins production on his second feature film. He won’t discuss the project yet but says that at some juncture in his career, he wants to kiss his “good guy” image bye, bye, bye!
“I would love to play a bad guy,” Bass says. “My dream is to die in a movie. I look at it as a win-win situation for everybody. Fifty percent of the audience would just want to see me in the movie and the other 50 percent would just want to see me die.”
In the meantime, fans may catch him on an upcoming episode of “Seventh Heaven.” He has been a guest star on the show and has been asked to come back to film a few more episodes.
“Hopefully it’ll fit into my schedule because I love that show,” he says.
As for that much talked about ‘N Sync movie, Bass says when the boys find the right project, they’ll make a movie.
“We don’t want to just make a movie for money like the Spice Girls did, which was horrible,” says Bass.
“And we don’t want to copy the Beatles’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ because that was their thing and they did it brilliantly. If we do a movie with the five of us, the only way to probably do it is as a musical. We’re still looking at things. The best idea we’ve had would be ‘Grease III,’ but I don’t know if that’s ever going to work out. But that would be ideal.”
Lest you think Bass is just a little too cool for his own good, he revealed that he does have his dorky moments. He is a not-so-closet karaoke fan–so much so that he sang himself silly in the privacy of his own room after he found an Internet site that allows you to use your own computer to karaoke.
“My voice was so hoarse the next day,” Bass says, laughing. ” But I love going out to karaoke. New Orleans has some of the best karaoke bars I’ve ever been to. I usually like to sing duets, like ‘Summer Nights’ [from ‘Grease’]. I used to go out and karaoke more and just have a really good time being cheesy. But then someone heard me sing and said, ‘You’re a singer?!’ I was like, ‘I was just having fun.’ But I still do it. It is fun.”
