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'My Big Fat Greek Wedding''s Joey Fatone on Movies, Music and Love

© Heather Wadowski

With the recent re-emergence of rock music, many people are quick to say that the pop bubble has finally burst-- especially since bands like The Strokes seem to receive more airplay than The Backstreet Boys or any of their pop counterparts. However, there’s one pop band that's withstanding the test of time and proving that, so long as you have talent and keep reinventing yourself, your 15 minutes of fame can go on. That band is *NSYNC.

Criticized by the public when they first hit the music scene for riding on BSB's wave of success, Joey Fatone, Justin Timberlake, Chris Kirkpatrick, Lance Bass and J.C. Chasez have been working hard to distinguish themselves from the other boy bands that burst onto the scene in the late '90s. Though they first gained a dedicated fanbase off of bubble-gum tunes like "I Want You Back," the band has slowly evolved into, well, men. With their soulful hit "Gone" earning a nomination at the Soul Train Awards and the R&B-flavored "Girlfriend" tearin' up the charts, *NSYNC is expanding their audience without abandoning those who made them famous. In fact, their most recent tour-- "Celebrity"-- has been receiving rave reviews from both kids and adults alike for its musical diversity.

"It's not like the last tour where we had the bulls and we're flying,” Fatone says. “It's a lot more intimate and some of the songs we do we change them a bit. Like when we do "I Want You Back" we do a blues medley. We also do a cool little medley of Beatles and Temptations tunes-- and no we aren't trying to grasp the parents-- we're just doing it cause it's something we’re paying our respect to and that we look up to with our music."

*NSYNC's willingness to try new things isn’t anything new-- in fact, it's helped lead to the band's popularity. Just a year ago the band made their debut on the IMAX screen in "*NSYNC Bigger Than Live,” while Fatone and Bass starred in Miramax's "On the Line." Now, as Bass plans to travel into outerspace, Fatone is flying solo and returning to the big-screen with the comedy "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

In "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" Fatone plays Angelo, the prankster cousin of Nia Vardalos' lead character, Toula. Though his time on-screen is relatively short (he only has a supporting role), Fatone uses his charm and comedic streak to steal the limited screentime he has. While Fatone admits that he's always had an interest in acting, with *NSYNC he doesn't have time for much outside of supporting roles.