Tattooed Timberlake Dirties Up for 'Alpha Dog'

Jan. 12, 2006 — -- Justin Timberlake showed up at the "Alpha Dog" premiere last week without longtime girlfriend Cameron Diaz, Hollywood gossips are buzzing with details of their breakup, and still, the 25-year-old pop star has been all smiles.

With encouraging early reviews for his performance as a buff, heavily tattooed kidnapper, Timberlake is taking a big step in his bid to parlay pop stardom into a film career.

"Making this film, I think we all walked away feeling like we got our hands extremely dirty, you know? To make this film, it was extremely challenging," Timberlake said at a mid-December press event to promote the film, just before rumors of his break-up with Diaz were heating up.

"I got the script first before I really got the story. When I read the script, I said, 'Wow, this is a humongous statement, this script,'" he said.

"Alpha Dog," opening today, is based on the life of Jesse James Hollywood, a drug dealer who became one of the youngest men ever to be on the FBI's most wanted list.

Hollywood is now in prison, awaiting trial on charges stemming from the slaying of a California teenager six years ago over a drug debt. Four of Hollywood's alleged cohort have already been convicted.

Timberlake plays, Frankie, one of the kidnappers, and to research his part he traveled with director Nick Cassavetes to the California prison to meet the man on whom his character is based.

Between the swastika tattoos and hard-bitten experiences, Timberlake may have caught a little too much realism.

"I walked away from the meeting deciding that I could not, in any way shape or form, get through this film by literally basing my character off of him because it just felt wrong," he says.

"And it was really challenging to do. So I think that after really literally meeting him, I decided -- and I told him to his face -- that this will not be a portrayal of you, this will be a character that's based off of what happened," he said.