Pop singer prefers smaller roles in dramatic films, despite his comedic turns on TV’s ’Saturday Night Live’.

When word of Justin Timberlake’s whereabouts leaked out at the Sundance Film Festival, paparazzi swarmed around his hotel like ants. His publicist told me she’d never seen such a feeding frenzy, and she had shepherded Brad Pitt through film festivals.

Timberlake was spirited away to a secluded location, where I met up with him. He slid into a chair, casually attired in a V-neck sweater over a T-shirt and jeans with a de rigueur tiny rip, and immediately began twisting his lanky torso from side to side.

The 26-year-old pop singer is stretching himself in more ways than one. Not content to be one of the biggest stars of the music world and YouTube — the hilariously risque Christmas song he first performed on "Saturday Night Live" has received more than 10 million hits — Timberlake is dipping into acting. Although he’s made it sound like a lark, joking that he’s keeping his day job, he is far more serious about a movie career than he lets on. In August, when he learned that his Southern gothic drama "Black Snake Moan" was accepted into Sundance, he blocked out time from his FutureSex/LoveShow world tour to be front and center at the festival.

"I can most definitely imagine a time when I’m just acting and not singing," Timberlake said, pulling on fuzzy facial hair that falls short of a full-fledged beard. "I’ve always had the acting bug, but at first I felt kind of like, ’Nah, I don’t want to do it because I won’t be taken seriously and I won’t get the parts that I want.’ But then things started to open up, and there were a couple of directors that took a chance on me."

I wondered whether his cachet with young audiences factored into his being cast.

"To be quite honest, I couldn’t give a s — about that. You can never control what people are going to want to see," he says. "But you know, I don’t have a problem with it, either. If someone goes to see ’Alpha Dog’ or ’Black Snake Moan’ because they’re a fan of my music, they will still walk away with something."

Sounding a tad defensive, he points out that it’s not as if he lacks training for his latest gig.

"I studied acting when I was on this television show," Timberlake says, unable to bring himself to identify it as "The All New Mickey Mouse Club," on which he appeared as a Mouseketeer from 1993 to ’95 (moving on to become part of the boy band ’N Sync). "We had an acting coach we studied with. We worked five days a week. If we weren’t filming, we were taking classes. I applied what I learned then to my roles, but I also like to work by the seat of my pants.

"There’s a level of it that is musical to me, a rhythm to acting. So much of it is how a character sounds, because so much emotion is in somebody’s voice. When I start to imagine a character, I really start to imagine their soundtrack, like what they would listen to — what’s the music that they hold dear?"

He decided that his "Black Snake Moan" character would be a big fan of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and got inspiration by playing the band’s songs between takes. But while music infuses the movie — his co-stars all sing — Timberlake only emotes.

It’s an example of how he’s wisely following the Mark Wahlberg model of transitioning from music into acting by choosing straight dramatic roles, rather than going the Elvis Presley route and getting trapped in big-screen vehicles that are feeble excuses to segue into a song.

"I don’t see any reason to sing in a movie," Timberlake says. "But if the inspiration is there and it makes sense, I wouldn’t shy away from it because, you know, I like to think of myself as sort of brave. I mean brave enough to do independent films — dramas I can sink my teeth into — instead of taking the broad comedy everyone wanted me to do based on my appearances on ’SNL.’ "

"Alpha Dog" (his second movie, after "Edison Force," which went straight to DVD) came out the same week as his split from Cameron Diaz hit the news. The breakup of their four-year relationship, along with rumors linking Timberlake to Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel, captured more media attention than his film, which was unfortunate, because he blows far more experienced actors off the screen.

"Tabloids are interested in making a soap opera out of people’s lives, so you can’t invest in that. I like to talk about the work I do, and that’s all I feel that I owe anyone," says Timberlake, who arrived at Sundance with a date guaranteed not to spark headlines — his mom.

In "Black Snake Moan," directed by "Hustle & Flow’s" Craig Brewer, Timberlake has a supporting role as Ronnie, a nervous kid from Memphis (Timberlake’s hometown), who enlists in the Army, leaving his highly sexed lover (Christina Ricci) to fend for herself. Samuel L. Jackson, as an ex-blues singer, offers her refuge after a wild sex-and-drugs binge.

"When we meet Ronnie, he’s becoming a man, and he has a lot of trouble dealing with that," Timberlake says. "The way Craig described Ronnie to me is like his uncles and his dad always talked down to him and told him he was a sissy. I mean, in the South, that’s a big deal to be called a sissy, not a man. He wants so to be considered one of the guys."

Timberlake and Brewer share a Memphis connection. The director moved back to the city where he spent a chunk of his childhood after attending schools in the Bay Area, including studying at American Conservatory Theater.

"I’m kind of the Memphis filmmaker, and he’s the pop star from Memphis," Brewer says. "Everybody started saying, ’You need to meet Justin.’ Finally there was a day when I called him on the phone. We talked, and I told him about ’Black Snake Moan.’ I just felt in my bones that he was supposed to play Ronnie."

Timberlake offered to read for the role, but Brewer decided he would rather just talk to him.

"So we talked and went over the unique nature of the South," he says. "It’s the last mythological landscape in America. Justin completely understood that. He had a real connection to the character."

"I don’t know if I’d have done it if it wasn’t for Craig’s confidence in me," Timberlake says.

Brewer liked it that both of them are new to the movie game.

"He’s fresh, and I’m fresh. We were the two most inexperienced people on the set," he says. "We would kind of look at each other and go, ’I think that worked out nice.’ We’re like, ’Let’s roll with it.’

"Justin was quite aware that he had incredible actors to work with. I’m sure it intimidated him. But he’s very competitive — I don’t mean he was competing with the other actors, but he knew Sam and Christina were bringing their A game every day, and he had to do the same. He didn’t have any margin of error with this cast."

Timberlake said what he learned from Ricci was "to have balls. She just took that character by the horns. The most you can do is put everything you know and everything you have to offer into a role."

His favorite scene is a counseling session between Ronnie and his girlfriend.

"He wants to hold it together, but he just breaks down," he says. "Like he says, ’I can’t do this when she does what she does,’ " referring to her promiscuity. Ricci’s character replies, "I don’t love anybody the way I love Ronnie."

To my inquiry, asked gingerly, whether he’s ever felt that way toward anyone, Timberlake responds, "Yeah, sure. You definitely feel that connection with relatives and loved ones."

Brewer admires the pop star for not choosing pseudo-musicals like the 2001 "Glitter," starring Mariah Carey.

"Whenever Justin decides to do a movie that has musical elements, it’s going to be with me," he says. "We’ve talked about some ideas."

Timberlake has just completed two more movies, which will show his range. In "Southland Tales," directed by "Donnie Darko’s" Richard Kelly, Timberlake sports a jagged scar as a soldier enlisted to stop the country from sliding into anarchy.

"My character takes shrapnel metal in his face," he says. "Richard loves apocalyptic statements. That’s what ’Darko’ basically was about. He loves time travel and the end of the world."

On a lighter note, he voices a young King Arthur in "Shrek the Third."

"You kind of get to make your own choices because the other actors aren’t there when you’re recording. A lot of my scenes are with Shrek, and I hear him in my mind, you know the way Mike (Myers) has portrayed him. So you know how to play off of it."

Movie treatments are being developed with Timberlake in mind, a fact he acknowledges with hesitancy.

"I feel like I’m gloating or something," he says. "But it’s really nice to know that I’m getting interest in places where I’m interested, that the film community likes what I’ve done."

As for future roles, "nothing has been set in stone. I’m on tour until August."

Which directors would he like to work with?

"Marty, of course," he says, referring to Martin Scorsese. He also names Darren Aronofsky, who made the controversial "The Fountain" and "Pi."

"I like directors that are unapologetic and want to say something, Timberlake says. "I feel lucky to be in this position where I can go out for the things that I want. I’ll either get them or I won’t, but you know, I have to trust my tastes."