The tinted window of the Range Rover Sport is drawn down to just below eyelevel. Leaning forward in the righthand back seat, the passenger is peeking his sharp, crystal-blue eyes out over the glass. He's observing, daydreaming, scanning the horizon as the warm British summer breeze rushes around his ears and makes his eyes water. The window is just low enough for the passenger to see out, without the world being able to see in.
As the car navigates the north London traffic, the silver finish winking like mercury in the early evening light, the passenger watches the school kids of Kentish Town laugh their way around to a friend's house, the estate agents sip their first Friday-night pints, the girl in a red Fiat sing along to Lily Allen's "Smile": all this without any of them noticing. There are no double takes, no gawping open mouths; if anything, they notice the flash car rather than the absurdly famous pop icon sitting silently in the back, watching.
The passenger finds moments like this surreal, it's so rare that he gets to indulge in a spot of quiet voyeurism -- all too often it's the other way around: all eyes on him.
As the V8's supercharger kicks in, rocking the passenger's freshly buzzed grade-one cut into the brushed leather headrest, he closes his eyes and shuts out the traffic, trying to grab a few minutes of solitude before the door is opened and the paparazzi bulbs start raining down their hot white light.
Justin Timberlake -- for who else would it be? -- is the world's biggest pop star. He's also GQ's International Man Of The Year. As his second solo album FutureSex/LoveSounds will prove, there isn't a performer on the planet who can touch him for intelligently crafted pop songs that make you want to shake your bones. He's the whole package -- so perfect a pop product it's as if he's been created in a laboratory by a team of chart scientists. In a way, perhaps he was. But that doesn't mean he's not in control of his own destiny. If you have to know one thing about Justin Timberlake, it's this: the kid is a master of manipulation.
Of course, this isn't the first time the world has witnessed Timberlake's undeniable powers of persuasion. After all, before his first solo album Justified came out in 2002, we thought we had him figured out. He was a chump, right? Just another processed teen star with a unit-shifting past and a where-are-they-now future. But this is the man who crawled out of the boy-band wreckage at the start of the millennium, got rid of those *Nsync curls, went live on New York's Hot 97 radio station and admitted he'd gone down on Britney Spears. "I did it. I'm dirty."
One minute Timberlake was a forgotten relic of teeny pop, the next he's making the video for "Cry Me A River" in which he's stalking his ex and creeping up behind her to sniff her hair. Not only that, but he sourced dance moves from Michael Jackson (and got away with it), hired the hottest producers in the business -- the Neptunes -- and within the space of a year no one could give two hoots about his New Mickey Mouse Club beginnings. Timberlake suddenly became Trousersnake and he'd done the impossible -- he'd become cool.
But Timberlake isn't done yet. Although Justified proved beyond doubt that he was more than the sum of his cheesy comrades, there was one story that wouldn't go away: rumours abounded that some of the songs on the record were originally written by the Neptunes' main button-pusher Pharrell Williams, not for Timberlake, but for the original King of Pop, Michael Jackson.
Timberlake, many scoffed, was only an entertainer, a pop vehicle fuelled not just by himself, but by someone else. And it's exactly this question of authenticity that Timberlake has his cross hairs lined up on for his second long-player.
The Landmark London hotel, situated on the busy Marylebone road, has been Timberlake's home for just under a week now; he's booked out an entire floor for his team. And with Cameron Diaz -- Timberlake's girlfriend ever since they met at an awards ceremony in 2003 -- in tow, this means tight security.
The power couple are currently working together for the first time, Timberlake voicing the part of the King's nephew in next year's Shrek 3. In fact, acting is becoming more than just a sideline for Timberlake. In Alpha Dog, out later this year, he plays his first meaty role, as a drug-dealing, tattooed gangland nasty.
With all the pre-planning and attention to detail of a state visit, this week has seen Timberlake give umpteen interviews, perform a special showcase at the Hammersmith Palais, record a live performance at Abbey Road Studios for Radio 1 and, most impressively, avoid the glare of hundreds of paparazzi desperate to snap Timberlake and his Hollywood A-list girlfriend out on the town together.
So far, then, the trip has gone like clockwork. The only photograph that's made the tabloids is one of Cameron leaving Nobu, the Mayfair Japanese restaurant, wearing what looks suspiciously like an engagement ring on her left hand (but more of that later). And the only newspaper story of any note that seems to be bothering Timberlake (or at least his team) is a quote that ran in one of the nationals about JT's thoughts on, and experimentation with, drugs.
Right now, Timberlake is soaking up the view from the balcony of our interview suite. There's a large Jewish wedding that's been going on all day in the hotel's Winter Garden, a huge cavernous lounge where fake palm trees rise up out of a carpet, so gaudy it nearly distracts from the waitresses' uniforms. "Let's go be wedding crashers," he suggests. "Nah, that's so last year, right?"
Timberlake is a lot bigger than one might expect. When you see him dancing, moving like liquid, he's so in control of his body you expect him to be, well, more Tome Cruise. More compact. But he's a jock -- tall, broad, ripped. Just over six feet tall in the white Lacoste trainers in which he pads about, puffing his chest out, stretching his biceps behind his back, snapping his neck this way and that. It's like watching an Olympic gymnast warm up before a performance on the bars.
"I am an athlete," he says, settling into a white and gold replica Louis XIV chair, hooking a size ten onto one knee. He's wearing a plain black T-shirt, a pair of William Rast baggy jeans -- the clothing line Timberlake and his best friend Trace Ayala have set up, named after their grandfathers -- and a black studded belt. There's no expensive jewellery, no flashy "JT" diamond pendant like the one he used to throw round his neck while hanging out with Pharrell and, thankfully, no trucker cap.
"I'm active," he continues. "Whether that's going hiking behind my house in LA with my two boxers, Buckley and Brennan... You can let them off the leash and watch them go. When I'm on tour, it's golf. My dad told me I should take up golf so one day I can shoot my age. That's when a man is complete; the planets aligned. At the moment I can shoot my age in about five holes."
When Justin says "dad", he doesn't mean his biological father Randy Timberlake. "Well, my father left when I was two; my stepfather has been the guiding force, maybe not in my career, but in how to behave as a human being."
If it was his stepfather Paul Harless who showed that manners maketh the man then it was his mother who taught him career control. It was Lynn, one afternoon in 1992, who decided to try one last audition for the American talent show Star Search -- a prototype of Pop Idol -- in Nashville before heading home to Memphis, Tennessee.
Timberlake was sulky that day, but he made the open audition, blew away the judges and, along with fellow pop prodigies Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, made it onto season eight of The New Mickey Mouse Club (a hotly competitive children's TV variety show). Lynn, incidentally, was also the person who came up with the name *Nsync for the boy band that would catapult her son to international fame.
The Justin Timberlake sitting in front of me in the summer of 2006 is a different creature to the man I interviewed three years ago, around the release of Justified. Back then there was obvious trepidation as to how the "new" Timberlake would be received. Back then, he was still half imagining critics would laugh him off stage.
"I was nervous, of course," explains Timberlake. "And I was surprised at how well Justified did. I mean, I was pretty determined. I was determined to put it out there in a big way."
And now? Well, it's clear he's more confident, more at ease with fame. It may have taken 15 years in front of audiences, but Timberlake is finally learning to trust his talent. It's a confidence that's also pushing JT to ensure his legacy is left behind. This year, he bought in to Stax Records, the legendary Southern soul label, home to Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, among others. He has plans not only to sign local Memphis bands and launch them using his endorsement, but also take them on the road. Just as he does for the label, so he has big plans for his own career.
"This is me right now at my creative best," he tells me. "The first record may have been made with more from here" -- he points to his heart -- "but this record has been made more from here" -- he points to his temple. "I don't want people to think I'm some sort of self-obsessed sex machine."
So does he feel older, more grown up, ready to settle down, perhaps? "Men are monkeys, man. Listen, as for marriage and so on... I have my two dogs for kids so you should ask them how I'm doing!" Then, perhaps conscious of the fact that Diaz is close by, he adds, "Never say never, but why ruin a good thing?"
Timberlake is well rehearsed at the smoke-and-mirrors game that is the celebrity interview. After all, he's been doing it almost as long as Arctic Monkeys have been alive. It can be frustrating guessing at his motivations, but perhaps the best glimpse into where Justin Timberlake is heading next creatively and emotionally comes from his work with Rick Rubin, the awesomely influential American producer who has worked with everyone from Run DMC and the Beastie Boys to Johnny Cash.
Rubin worked with Timberlake on several songs for the new album, though only one of them made the final cut. "Because they weren't good enough? No, no, Justin felt that, I think, it was an entire separate body of work," explains Rubin on the phone from his LA studio where he is currently working on Linkin Park's new album, while also developing a Johnny Cash video that Timberlake had a hand in devising. "Yeah," says Rubin, "he had this idea to get loads of well-known artists from today -- Chris Rock, Jay-Z, Brian Wilson, Kanye West, himself -- dressed in a black suit and get them singing along to the song. It's a neat idea."
The Rubin production that did make it onto FutureSex/LoveSounds, "Another Song", is the only ballad in what is otherwise a collection of hip-hop-infused club bangers nearly all devised by rap producer Timbaland, the man behind the sounds of Missy Elliot [sic], Nelly Furtado and Aaliyah.
Written by Timberlake, "Another Song" has no sweetener, no Pro Tools reverb on the voice, it's pure Rubin -- stripped back, raw, just Timberlake and soul legend Bill Withers' old band. It is, frankly, heart-wrenching, a full-on love song that Chris Martin would be proud of. Many, including Rubin, might guess that this was the next direction for the more mature but still "not-quite-ready-to-settle-down-yet" Justin Timberlake.
"I can't comment on that," chuckles Rubin. "But that
authenticity he's striving for is within him. I've met many pop stars...
and they can all entertain. But Justin has something else. We just have
to wait till he's ready to show it."
And as Timberlake knows only too well, if and when
he does decide to step away from the dance floor, one thing is for certain,
the world will be watching: all eyes on him.