By Darlene Donloe
Justin
Timberlake ’s career has taken him from being a big star to a little troll.
Here’s what
happened. He started off on The All New Mickey Mouse Club and Star Search. He
then became a member of the highly successful boy band, NSYNC. He’s now a huge
solo artist. He has appeared in several films and makes numerous television
appearances, most notably on Saturday
Night Live and The Tonight Show With
Jimmy Fallon.
All of that
progression has led him to his latest role as a troll named Branch in
Dreamworks Animation and 20th Century Fox’s new film, Trolls, in theaters nationwide November
4.
Trolls stars Anna Kendrick as Poppy, the optimistic leader of the
Trolls. It also features Gwen Stefani, James Corden, Russell Brand, Icona Pop,
Ron Funches and Kunal Nayaar. As the story goes, together the Trolls embark on an adventure that takes
them far beyond the only world they’ve ever known.
Justin Timberlake
I caught up with
Timberlake at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills recently, to talk about how
he became a troll.
Q: What are some of the unique challenges of
doing some of the songs, which are covers and recreating them?
JT: Well, the,
every song is situational, whether it be for comedic purposes or dramatic purposes.
Really, you break down each moment and at the end of the day it’s theatrical as
well. For instance, there are some great opportunities to right your own source
music. The roller skating scene. Writing a song for Ariana Grande. When you’re
using a song like, The Song Of Silence
as soon as you hear those two opening acoustics it’s so recognizable that all
the adults in the room laugh and then when something like True Colors, I can’t imagine actually having to write a song after
hearing that in that scene, it works so well.
Q: You can do any project you want. Why did you
choose this one?
JT: That’s not true.
Q: Yes, it is.
JT: If that’s
not a setup for an obnoxious answer. I’m sure however I try to weasel out of
that question I won’t sound pretentious at all. This is like, for me, an embarrassment of
riches. Dreamworks, I feel like redefined their own genre of animation. When I
was pitched the movie - Anna (Kendricks) was already in the movies, so I
thought, ‘I’m in.’ Then they talked to me about doing the music. I’ve always
wanted to do music for film. So, I was like, wow, I may as well pick one that
has an awesome budget. So, selfishly, I was like, ‘I’ll be happy to.’ Then you
find yourself in a room with people asking what do you think. I’m kidding, I’m mostly kidding. It was an
embarrassment of riches to have all of these resources at your fingertips. To
do it this way. You had the sense the movie was going to be great, based on the
pitch they had given me. It was going to have it’s own flair and DNA. I don’t
know why you would say no.
Q: Were you all
in the same studio or was it individual?
JT: All the
voice acting – they gave Anna and I a shot at doing it together, but we talked
over each other most of the time. It was totally unusable. It’s terrible. But
we did all, funny enough, the cast sings – there are some other little music
pieces. What was fun for me was I got to see everybody in 24-72 hours of time.
Q: You star in
the movie and you were in charge of the music. Talk about that challenge. It
was a big responsibility.
JT: To be
honest, I found it to be self-serving. To be honest. I got to see and know a
lot of what we were trying to accomplish with the movie. The toughest part for
me was some music cues that I was really excited about ended up on the cutting
room floor. Trolls 2! (laughter) For me the time you spend on them was
singular and separate that the biggest challenge was writing Can’t Stop The
Feeling. That was the biggest because they had a specific scene for our highest
sort of arc of the animated extravaganza. That was the toughest code to crack
at first. The way they did it was they storyboarded it. You can pick your way
through it.
Justin Timberlake plays Branch in Trolls
Q: Your song from the film, Can’t Stop The Feeling, came out before
the movie.
JT: When they
first gave me the pitch for the music. True
Colors was already in the movie and Sound
of Silence was in the movie. It all looked like an ABBA video. It reminded
me of something I may have taken. It reminded me of a certain era. The 70s. The
great R&B songs like September. I
felt like the whole thing felt 70s to me. For some reason I referenced Saturday Night Fever to the powers that
be. We talked about how Staying Alive
and that basically the soundtrack came out before the movie and that happened
with Grease and Urban Cowboy. I don’t know
why I just referenced three John Travolta movies. That probably says a lot
about me than anything. When we finished
Can’t Stop The Feeling we were like –
lets just put it out now and see what happens.
Q: Talk about your writing process. How do you
create? Do you have a tape recorder? Do you write things down? Does it differ from when you’re doing your
own music?
JT: This is
different from any experience I’ve had writing a song. To write specifically
within a sort of landscape for a scene and lack of a better term a feeling,
it’s situational, but the trick is to write something that could work for the
scene. But something that could stand alone on its own and live outside the movie.
Q: I mean do you
actually have a tape recorder? Do you write things down?
JT: Oh, you want
to know my actual tricks. You got to pay extra for that. I can’t talk about my
process because if I do I won’t be able to do it. I actually don’t write anything down in the
studio. I believe all of it is melody based. It has to all make sense. I try to
write things down in the studio. I found I kept writing the same word 20 times.
There are different songs that get written different ways. To be totally honest
I couldn't tell you how it all happens. You just start piecing it together.
This had its own set of obstacles. I had to sensor myself because it was
animation. I don’t usually do that. Just
the specificity of what is happening in the scene, I felt I had to have it make
sense. I was given a list of criteria which felt like a huge wall that you
couldn't get around.
Trolls is in
theaters nationwide November 4.
