Is There a Hidden NSYNC Star Wars Cameo in Episode II?

If you’re of a certain age, you grew up listening to pop boy bands and seeing the Star Wars prequels in movie theaters. Well, guess what? One of the biggest pop star groups of all time, NSYNC, might have gotten a cameo in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Here’s the unbelievable story of what happened…

NSYNC Star Wars Cameo: The Story

Can you remember all the way back to the year 2001?

It was a long time ago now, so don’t be embarrassed if you can’t reach back quite that far in the recesses of pop culture history.

At that time, *NSYNC was one of the biggest boy bands on the planet.

They had exploded onto the music scene and taken the entire world by storm. To give you an idea, it was very much like the wildly popular K-Pop band BTS has done more recently in terms of musical celebrity stardom.

Also in that historical era of 2001, George Lucas and Rick McCallum at Lucasfilm were producing Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

This situation resulted in the two producers’ daughters being HUGE fans of the boy band *NSYNC. Well, the producers’ daughters were able to convince their Star Wars bigwig dads to film a cameo with NSYNC.

What happened next…?

That NSYNC Star Wars cameo might have actually made it into the final cut of the film!

Is NSYNC Actually In Star Wars: Attack of the Clones?

Several people have tried to get to the bottom of this whole episode.

In a Huffington Post article specifically, there are a lot more details provided.

They tried to find out the truth and see if NYSNC is actually in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

The official story is that they were cut, which made the band pretty upset, obviously. Though some funny stuff did come out of it, including an SNL sketch and the above “Banned from Star Wars” joke.

When the band was able to become actual Jedis, only to be cut out afterwards, they were a bit disappointed. Steven created a Photoshopped image of the band — along with Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake’s girlfriend at the time, as Padmé Amidala — joking about how they were “Banned from ‘Star Wars.’” Joey later wore a shirt with this image to George Lucas’ premiere for “Revenge of the Sith” and confronted the creator, who he’d previously met on set and backstage at *NSYNC concerts.

HuffPo

Because the whole of the Huffington Post article is actually quite lengthy, I’ve decided to break it down into some smaller chunks here.

That way you, can get a quick summary of what they discovered without wading into all the other details.

If you want, you can read the full piece here.

HuffPo Investigates NSYNC and Star Wars

Here’s what the Huffington Post was able to determine…

• NSYNC member Joey Fatone has confirmed that he and JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick actually shot two separate scenes, playing the iconic role of Jedi knights, though as extras, not featured roles or ones with speaking lines.
• They agreed not to be paid to be extras in the Star Wars movie, which isn’t surprising, because lots of celebrities have tried to do similarly.
• However, due to their extensive film and TV work, NSYNC was a part of the Screen Actors Guild (or SAG), which meant they needed to be paid for their work as extras.
• Due to this issue, apparently, the footage was said to be officially cut from the final version of the movie that made it into theaters and homes around the world.
• All that being said, HuffPo tried to determine if there was even a slight chance that NYSNC is in Star Wars by rewatching the film itself. They tried to spot any glimmer of the pop star boy band in Attack of the Clones for themselves.
• After much galactic research, they found one small scene that just might contain Joey Fatone of NSYNC.

Here’s the clip from Huffington Post:

Do you see the guy there in the back? That’s who they think might be Joey Fatone’s character, which would mean the NSYNC cameo is in Star Wars!

Lucasfilm never commented on the subject officially, so we’ll all have to decide for ourselves what we think happened here.

So…

Is NSYNC in Star Wars? Officially speaking, no. According to Lucasfilm, none of the NSYNC footage made it into the final cut of the movie. That being said, some have speculated that there’s a small cameo in Attack of the Clones that could be Joey Fatone. We may never know for sure…

What do you think? Is *NSYNC in Star Wars after all? Or is it a celebrity cameo that could’ve been?

Let me know in the comments or on social media at @disfordisney_.

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