Jesse McCartney attracting movie offers

Jesse McCartney has been flooded with movie offers but he's been careful not to be typecast into certain roles.

Jesse McCartney has a lot in common with Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. The 18-year-old New Yorker started his career in a boy band like Williams and Timberlake, he was a childhood TV star like Britney, and he is also a movie actor-cum-pop star like Simpson.

And with the successful release of McCartney's first solo album, Beautiful Soul, the former star of boy band Dream Street has been inundated with movie offers.

But the difference between, say, Simpson and McCartney is, while Simpson is wearing ripped jean shorts and a bikini for The Dukes of Hazzard, McCartney is more keen on a script for a movie called Keith. He has no intention of being typecast like Simpson.

"I've been reading script after script after script," says McCartney, who is about to go on stage in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

"There's lots of offers and I have turned down many because there's stuff I just don't want to do, and don't want to fall into. A lot of them are things like the classic Disney films - the Herbies, Cinderella stories - and I just do not want to fall into that."

He says his role in Keith will be a bit of a "curve ball" for most of his fans.

"It's very different from Jesse McCartney, and the whole Jesse McCartney vibe. [But] it's just to let them know that there's other things that I can, and will do besides my music career. It's very deep and just a powerful script [by new director Todd Kessler].

"I believe in him, and I believe in the script and that's why I'm shooting it. It's not for the money. It's just for the opportunity to prove myself."

McCartney plays the part of 18-year-old Keith who is an intelligent yet eccentric kid.

"He's brilliant actually," he says. "Keith is avant garde and out there. But he's a wit, he will have the last word, he's too cool for school, he knows more than the teachers and the teachers know it, and the twist is he could basically get into any school he wants but he's dying."

It's a far more challenging role than his first acting roles on American TV shows All My Children and Summerland in his early teens.

His solo music career is also more challenging than being in Dream Street. That band was no super group like Timberlake's band *NSYNC.

But Dream Street's self-titled debut album did sell more than one million copies in the US which is not bad for a bunch of 14-year-olds.

"When there's five of you on stage you are looked at as a team, as a whole, but when I'm commanding the audience on my own, it's up to me to do the same as what those five guys did. You have to make sure you maintain the same energy level, and it is all on you."

He is not ashamed of his boy band background but he has battled the stigma, and with the release of Beautiful Soul he's done it successfully.

"There's always going to be negative comments. But no matter what you do and who you are there's always going to be bad comments, but you get past it and you can't care and you can't let it get to you.

"Dream Street was a huge learning process. As far as being onstage, recording, the long hours, the crazy schedules, the chaotic touring, and working with a group of people, working with others, and not just people my age, but all ages from the crew to managers to producers to record labels.

"And from doing that you just get a lot more knowledge going into a solo career, as I'm sure many artists, like Justin, and some of the other artists out there will know.

"You have more knowledge of what's going to happen, and what to do when ... and a lot of mistakes were made back in Dream Street, enough not to fall into the same traps again."

And for the record, McCartney insists that being a childhood star has not meant he's missed out on anything.

"While I may have missed out on some of the normal day-to-day stuff, I've really experienced more than most people my age."

His influences include classic songwriters like James Taylor, Carole King, and The Beatles who he grew up listening to. But while Beautiful Soul has a singer/songwriter feel to it, on tracks like Get Your Shine On (a crotch grabbing Michael Jackson type track) and the electro pop of That Was Then, you can hear the influence of current artists like Timberlake and British R&B smoothie Craig David.

McCartney co-wrote four of the 12 tracks on the album and collaborated with some of pop music's top songwriters, including Andreas Carlson (Britney Spears), Desmond Child (Aerosmith) and Robbie Nevil (Destiny's Child), on the rest.

"Sometimes I come up with an idea and then we hash it out together. Sometimes someone else does it," says McCartney, who always keeps a journal with him.

"Compared to Dream Street, a lot more time was taken in the whole recording and creative process.

"And, for the record, it was more about, 'What do I want to do?', as opposed to, 'This is what you're gonna do'. Back then it was kind of just put in front of me and I gave them what they wanted. But, for me, the solo record was a chance to show people that here's what I'm interested in doing."

Who: Jesse McCartney, former boy band member goes solo.
Where: Civic Theatre, Auckland, Sunday, September 18.
Album: Beautiful Soul, out now.