Justin Timberlake recently stated that he didn’t need or want coaching or acting classes for his new role in the movie Alpha Dog. I’ll be giving my two cents about this after the information from imdb.com:
Singer/actor Justin Timberlake refused to take any acting classes to help prepare for his role in the film Alpha Dog, relying instead on the training he had as a young child. The “Sexyback” star plays an accused teen killer in the film and was keen to work on a project that was edgy and controversial. He says, “I thought it was a dark script, but I also thought that it was a great statement and I like to make statements .”Timberlake was adamant that he didn’t want to take any acting classes or work with an acting coach to prepare him for his role as one of Jesse’s friends. He explains, “I took classes when I was really young. I just use that as much as possible. For me it seems more natural to not do as much of that.”
Now first off I must say that this movie does look good, I want to see it because of the story and the great cast (Timberlake excluded obviously) there is Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch. Also the trailer is pretty good, you can watch it here
BUT the reason this movie looks good has nothing to do with Justin “I can’t keep my cocky mouth shut” Timberlake. Buddy hasn’t even gotten a review yet and already he’s decided that acting classes wouldn’t help him be better. As an actress I’m completely offended and disgusted. There are two types of people who refuse help when doing something, the people who have all the time in world to explore their new activity and stupid cocky people. Hum….yep, I’m looking behind door 2 on this one.
The guy is completely handled in every decision he makes, and boy he has amazing managers, while Janet Jackson went down if flames at the Super bowl wardrobe malfunction fiasco Timberlake walked away without so much as a sunburn. He also is one of the very few boy band members who have a real music career after leaving the boys. And he’s dating a beautiful, funny, talented actress, who he refuses to marry and for some reason (low self esteem perhaps) she stays with him.
So of course pretty boy Justin thinks he can do anything. But acting is hard, and the better you are at it the easier it looks and that sometimes makes people think that it doesn’t require a lot of work, but it does. What I get from Timberlake is that he didn’t want to do the work, he would rather try and be edgy and tack his name onto a “statement” that the movie makes, not caring if his careless work hurts the film, or for that matter the statement that he likes so much.
There is no amount of studio touch ups that will hide bad acting, unlike singing. What would have helped Justin Timberlake is an honest teacher who could say “stop making that stupid face and give me something you didn’t practice in the mirror”. Or, of course a good editor, who would simply takes him out of the movie. We’ll see how good his acting really is by how much of his mug is shown in Alpha Dogs.
