Are you more critical of yourself on screen or on stage?

TIMBERLAKE: I’m very critical in both. It’s kind of painful for me to watch either or listen to either. But, you know, there is gratification, maybe even if you’re not fully satisfied ever with the outcome. I think that’s what keeps you hungry. But there is gratification in the fact that you A - make people smile, B - make people dance, C - make people laugh or D - make people make babies.

Have you started a next record? Is that in your mind?

TIMBERLAKE: To be honest, I really haven’t. The music that I’ve been doing for the first half of this year has really just the indie label I started. The artists that I have there, I’ve really just been writing and producing for them. So all of my creative musical juice is going into their projects and really... it’s really been fun for me to take the little stuff that I’ve learned, the little knowledge that I’ve gained over the years in the studio with writing songs and producing songs and the elements that have to come together to make a great song, to try to pass that knowledge on. I mean, we’re talking about people who have unbelievable talent but never had the experience of being in a proper studio and recording in a proper way. So I’m getting this [opportunity to] produce them in that way. I get to be their coach. At the end of the day, you can make 10,000 beats, you can play 10,000 progressions, but to be a producer means to be a great coach. And then grab a great performance out of someone who maybe didn’t know, pull something out, something - just like a director pulls out of an actor - pull something out that they didn’t know they had.

But can you be totally selfless when you’re doing that, or are there moments where you’re writing something and think, ‘No, that’s for me’?

TIMBERLAKE: Oh, no. No, no, it’s completely objective. I think that even when I write for myself, I’m very objective. It’s not as personal as you would think. I find this analogy kind of interesting and I’ve said this since I’ve started doing film, that a lot of our favorite actors, they end up playing a lot of parts that you start to realize, "Oh, he was cast in that, or she was cast in that movie, because that’s kind of who she is." And I find it a lot, you know, that the drill for acting is to find something personal that makes it relative so that you can display the truth of the character or the emotion of the character.

With writing, it’s kind of the opposite. So many of [Bob] Dylan’s songs, I mean they were just poems, and then all of a sudden they get stuck to you like they’re supposed to be more personal. We praise actors for playing someone else when in reality they’re using so much of themselves to play it. And then we praise musicians for being so personal, when in reality they’re probably using someone else to write the song. I mean, you look at the Bee Gees who wrote, "To Love Somebody". They wrote that song for Otis Redding. He dies before he recorded it. So they recorded it themselves, one of the biggest hits, and in reality they were writing for a young soul singer. So I find that analogy kind of interesting in the way that people perceive the art and the way that the art is created.

Speaking of the Bee Gees, will you be showing up on Saturday Night Live anytime soon?

TIMBERLAKE: I hope so. That is one of my favorite things in the world to do, so I’ll have to find a reason or an excuse to host.

Are there any plans to maybe do a lead role?

TIMBERLAKE: I just finished my first - I guess you would call it a lead role. It’s a co-lead with Jeff Bridges on a film that we just wrapped this spring called Open Road.

How are you liking these roles? These character parts often give an actor more room to play around.

TIMBERLAKE: I’ve only played antagonistic roles thus far. You know, my character in Black Snake Moan, my character in Alpha Dog, they were antagonists. And this was my first protagonist to play. So it was challenging in a sense where you couldn’t just go in a direction. There was a lot more thought that went into - Oh, I’m not coming in in the first act and then leaving and coming back in the third act and holding a gun to Sam Jackson’s head and people think I might shoot him. This is not the same dynamic. I’m the eyes of the audience in this film, and that’s always the job of the protagonist. So it was a fun experience for me to sort of have that finally come about, and we’ll see how it pans out. I haven’t really seen any of the movie yet.

Can I get you to comment on the calls for a boycott from the Hindu community for this movie? Have you heard about that?

TIMBERLAKE: You want me to comment on it? I’m not Hindu, so I have no idea. I wouldn’t even be able to properly comment on it.

How did you get the accent?

TIMBERLAKE: The accent, I worked very closely with a dialect coach who was very good Quebecois, and then we milked it as far as we could just to make it funny.

How was it working with Jeff Bridges?

TIMBERLAKE: Jeff is by far the greatest actor I’ve ever worked with. He is, for someone who’s done it so good for so long, and still to come in and be so collaborative and so giving - he really didn’t give me a choice but to just work with him. When I first met him it was like meeting - it was like talking to one of my uncles or my dad.