Justin Timberlake on cover ShortList Magazine

One setback for those waiting for new music from part-time singer/full-time actor/member of the New Establishment Justin Timberlake is the pesky fact that he’s had so many darned hit movies lately. His latest, Friends With Benefits, is hitting the shores overseas now, and the Emmy nominee did an interview with ShortList where he states, “To be honest, my plan would have probably been to do another record, probably right about now. I never stop considering myself a musician.”

Well, if that’s the case, then why not just get on with it, JT? Oh, right — all those hit movies.

The 30-year-old actor/singer, who’s last solo single “Summer Love” was released four years ago, elaborates on how he views his music (or, in this case, lack thereof):

“To me, it’s my bread and butter. And I mean that in a personal way — I don’t mean that it finances my ‘acting hobbies’. I joke with my friends that I should have a business card saying ‘David Fincher put me in a movie’, because Bad Teacher got a blessing due to The Social Network, and then Friends With Benefits came out of that. All the movies I’ve done were just opportunities that came up, but now that they’re all coming out back-to-back, people think, ‘Oh, he’s trying to make a statement by having an acting career.’ But it’s not like that for me. I don’t ever want to stop doing music.”

Timberlake goes on to talk about not wanting to do a movie where he’s playing a musician, because he “never cared about being taken seriously as a musician.”
He then explains: “I do pop music. I’m not saving the world. It’s making people forget about their worries, so I’ve always seen myself as an entertainer. I don’t take myself too seriously, so I don’t know how I can ask anyone else to.”