A picture of the heavily tattooed star from his new film Alpha Dog was met with wolf whistles from the audience when it was flashed upon a US chat show.
Timberlake - appearing as a guest on Jay Leno's show - spoke about
his role in the film, in which he plays an accused teen killer.
The movie co-stars Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone and is based on the true story of Jesse James Hollywood, a teenage drug dealer and fugitive, now awaiting trial for murder.
The 25-year-old star said: "The real guy that my character was based on had tats [tattoos] but he wasn't that tatted up. I just got a little happy. Nick [Cassavetes - the director] said 'I want you to have tattoos in the film' and I said 'Ok, what does that mean?' and he said 'I want you to pretend that your uncle owns a tattoo parlour and ever since you were 13-years-old you were able to get tattoos'."So I was like, 'OK', and we just kind of covered me up in tats."
He revealed that he met the real person he plays, Frankie Ballenbacher.And he said having to go to prison to meet him was "as strange as it sounds"."My heart goes out to him and everyone involved. It's just a tough thing to do."Like you said, the movie is all about that moment when you can go down two paths... I think the message from my character is - indecision is the wrong decision in the spur of the moment. You have to make your choice and he didn't do anything so..."
Viewers were treated to a scene where Timberlake's character and Elvis Schmidt (Shawn Hatosy) are deciding whether to kill their victim.Meanwhile the SexyBack singer drew sympathy from the audience as he showed off his broken finger.
He joked: "You should see have seen the other guy."Explaining how he broke it, he explained: "I was filming a scene and I got carried away. I was doing a video that we turned into a short film."
Timberlake remained tightlipped over his reported split from Cameron Diaz but was happy to talk about his video clip D**k in a Box, which has generated 7.5 million views on YouTube.
I
n the skit, he sports a tacky wig and fake beard in two minute 45-second mock music video. He appears in the clip alongside irreverent Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg, who also dons a similar hairpiece and goatee. Discussing different names that he could use for the censored version with Leno, the pair come up with "fungun", "love pump" and "spirit stick".
