*NSYNC members Lance Bass and Joey Fatone make their feature film debuts in the romantic comedy On The Line. The singers play buddies who try to track down a young woman that Bass’s character falls in love with on Chicago’s “L” train.
Bass had been planning to make the leap to feature films for some time, and he formed the production company, A Happy Place, with producer Wendy Thorlakson to make his acting and producing aspirations a reality. On The Line is the company’s first project to come to fruition, and Bass is well aware of the slack that he’s going to get for starring in a movie. “Of course, I worry about which way it’s going to go. I mean, I hope it’s a success, but yeah, there’s going to be a lot of criticism out there,” Bass says. “You know, a lot of people hate when musicians go over to acting and acting goes over to, you know, music, but I consider it all entertainment. I’m an entertainer. With music, I also act-every night’s like theater on stage in front of thousands of people. I do videos, that type of stuff. I do television shows. I mean, yeah, if it doesn’t do as well as I thought, I’m still gonna continue to go out there and do another one because I’m learning as it goes. I mean, everyone has to grow.”
A Happy Place was conceived as a company striving to make “soundtrack-driven feature vehicles for pop stars, athletes, and musicians.” The company has many films currently in development, including Shooting From The Heart-a project based on a magazine article by Tuesdays With Morrie author Mitch Albom that will feature still-to-be-cast rap and hip-hop stars-and a Holocaust drama about a Polish pianist.
On The Line opens Friday (October 26).