News broke upon the original release of “Attack of the Clones” in the summer of 2002 that NSYNC had made a cameo in the film, but eagle-eyed fans tried to look for them to no avail. Ten decades later at a convention panel for last year’s Fandemic Tour Atlanta, baritone singer Joey Fatone revealed that since he and his other boy bandmates were SAG-AFTRA union members, their scenes were ultimately cut to avoid additional costs as part of a SAG rights fee. Justin Timberlake and Lance Bass wouldn’t have even shown up, either, since they were too worn out from touring to visit the set. Fatone has fond memories of the experience and said that he has tried to dig up the old footage. He described the shoot that day:
“They put us in the wardrobe, I had a Padawan tail. George actually came out and directed us, which was really cool. Somebody was taping this, so I asked Rick McCallum, the producer of ‘Star Wars,’ ‘How do I get this footage?’ He’s like, ‘Ah, I can’t give it to you.’ So there’s actual footage of it, there’s actual footage of us shooting it and doing it. It was a cool experience…”
He also recalled how they were “in [front of] this big green screen where we’re literally fighting nothing” while they were making lightsaber noises to try to immerse themselves in the role. Alas, all their hard vocal work was for naught, and they were lost in the “Star Wars” aether.
