Justin Timberlake Revs Up His Sex Machine

Last November, Timberlake entered the brand-new Virginia Beach, Virginia, studio of hip-hop producer Timbaland, who had produced four tracks on Justified, the 2002 solo debut that buried Timberlake's image as a pansy boy-bander. Justified was musically assured and surprisingly sexual, opening with the live-in-the-studio Latin funk of the Neptunes-produced "Senorita," with its leering tag, "Gentlemen, good night/Ladies, good morning." Another Neptunes track, "Rock Your Body," became a hipster guilty pleasure (a chorus that referred to sharing a joint - "The air is thick, it's smelling right/So you blast to the left and you sail to the right" - helped as well), but it was the Timbaland track "Cry Me a River" (along with a video that made it clear it was his kiss-off to Britney Spears) that sparked sales topping out at 4 million.

Timberlake had been working at fame from age eleven, when he lost on Star Search in 1992. By the time he was twenty - when 'NSync's No Strings Attached sold 2.4 million copies its first week out, likely to stand as an all-time record - he had it pretty well covered. Then came a quest to make credible music, music that mattered to him. That took another three years, but the credibility issue was under control by August 2003, when Drew Barrymore and her boyfriend, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, turned up for one of Timberlake's club shows - word-of-mouth gigs that followed arena concerts and featured Timberlake on keyboard guiding his crack band through funk and soul jams.

Timberlake was better than twelve years into a career that had gotten him paid and laid. He was also twenty-three and at a crossroads. "I was burnt," he says. "My dad was like, 'You should enjoy your life - one day you're gonna be my age and you'll want to do things that you should have done when you had the body to do them.' I was like, 'Damn, you're right!' " He spent twenty-four months just watching the wheels go 'round. (By the way, John Lennon is his favorite songwriter, Donny Hathaway his vocal idol.) "When I took two years off, I was like, 'Oh, shit! This is what the world looks like at a regular pace,' " he says. "That was amazing for me. Just the little things, like sitting home on the weekend or making a Sunday tee time. Play golf, then come back home, have a beer and call it a day."

At his local clubs, Sherwood in L.A. and Spring Creek in Tennessee, Timberlake worked his way down to a two handicap, and he indulged in his other athletic passions, barreling down mountains on his snowboard and surfing in Hawaii. Usually, Diaz was at his side.

But work came knocking. Timberlake took another star turn, as the host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live in October 2003. He displayed serious acting chops in sendups of Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Simpson (in drag), as well as a memorable turn as an omelet pitchman ("I dressed up in yellow tights like a fucking omelet," he says of his commitment to his craft). The killer was Timberlake teaming with Jimmy Fallon on The Barry Gibb Talk Show. "He has great comic timing," says Fallon. "We were all impressed. We were about to go live - we had our backs to the audience - and Justin said to me, 'Remember the harmony on that one part. Seriously! Remember it.' I'll never forget that - I was nervous I wouldn't nail it. I felt like Joey Fatone - I mean, I was getting Fatone pressure."

After the show, Timberlake was inundated with acting offers. "SNL was like a playground," he says. "And the reason I got into film is because I needed something inspiring, but more intimate, that I didn't have to do in front of 18,000 people every night." During his "downtime," Timberlake tackled four films: Edison Force, which headed straight for the video rack, and three movies out next year - Black Snake Moan, Southland Tales and Alpha Dog, where Timberlake stars alongside Bruce Willis and Lukas Haas in the complex role of Frankie Ballenbacher, a murderous, weed-slinging gangbanger with a soft side. "Justin's got such an easy way of moving," says Alpha Dog director Nick Cassavetes, "much like a young Travolta in Saturday Night Fever." And regarding his future on the big screen? "The kid's got a rocket ship tied to his ass," says Cassavetes. "One day, I hope to be his assistant."

A year ago, Timberlake got the urge to record again. "I knew that I needed something new," he says. "I wanted to take more of a chance - experiment." He was also spurred on by the sad state of pop radio. "I said to myself, 'I don't want anything I do to sound like that.' I just didn't think it was that good."

No sooner had he gotten back into a musical mind-set than the big shots at his record label, Jive, were up his ass for new tunes. "When I started messin' around on this album, Barry Weiss [president of Jive Records] said to me, 'When's it gonna be done?' " says Timberlake. "I said, 'I don't know, it could take a year.' " Work on FS/LS started in December 2005. Timberlake moved at a leisurely pace: a few weeks in the studio, a few weeks off. (He likes to joke that he suffers from ADD, hence the cushy schedule.) He did a stint writing with his friend Matt Morris, whom he first met when they were both on The New Mickey Mouse Club in 1993. And he produced a track with Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. (Timberlake sang the hook on the Peas' breakthrough hit, "Where Is the Love?") Then Timberlake turned to Timbaland.