Justin Timberlake's Latest Big-Screen Role

By Stephen M. Silverman

06/24/2005 at 08:00 AM EDT

Justin Timberlake could finally become a movie star. The singer is in talks to play the boyfriend of Christina Ricci's character in the $13-million Black Snake Moan, to start shooting in September in Memphis, Timberlake's hometown, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Timberlake, 24, has been racking up screen credits lately. He already costarred with Morgan Freeman in the as-yet-unreleased Edison, as well as scoring a role in the Nick Cassavetes film Alpha Dog and lending his voice to the upcoming Shrek 3. (He also had an uncredited appearance in the 2001 film On the Line starring 'N Sync colleagues Lance Bass and Joey Fatone.)

In Black Snake Moan, which takes its name from an old blues song by Blind Lemon Jefferson, Samuel L. Jackson plays a blues guitarist who tries to help Ricci's oversexed character.