What’s Left for Him… to do?
The much-publicized divorce from the often dim-witted Jessica Simpson hasn’t left the former 98 degree singer too down and out. The recently single scenester has a new album, has worked on two TV pilots and boosts a small silver-screen role, along with launching a youth-based website. How’s that for picking up the pieces?
Nick Lachey’s charisma and wit, along with his ability to put up with his ex-wife’s atrocious housekeeping and dense comments on “Nick & Jessica,” certainly won him respect and broadened his fanbase. The recent divorcee has made a few attempts at continuing a career in television, while promoting his new solo CD, What’s Left Of Me.
“The way I look at acting is it’s a new frontier for me,” said Lachey, while in Toronto to promote his album. “I’m taking every opportunity as they come, and the more I do it, the better I get, and the more comfortable I get with it, but music is really my first love and the acting thing is something that crops up.”
A few things have cropped up. He had a recurring guest appearance in 2004 on Charmed, and later was asked to star in two development projects. The first saw Lachey in the role of a newly married baseball player.
“That show didn’t happen and I ended up doing She Said/He Said,” Lachey says.
He shot the pilot for the battle-of-the-sexes show She Said/He Said, but it wasn’t given the green-light for a series.
“I was so proud of what we did there, and I thought it turned really well, but in the TV world, sometimes they don’t work,” Lachey says, not discouraged.
He does have a tiny role in the supernatural thriller Rise, starring Lucy Lui and Michael Chiklis.
“I’m not sure what the release date is on that (movie). I play a street-thug kidnapper. I have much experience with beating people over the head and throwing them in trunks,” Lachely says sarcastically. “It was not a huge part, but an integral part of the movie.”
Besides his music and acting pursuits, Lachey has also co-founded a website: www.yfly.com. The site is designed to provide a safe online social network for teenagers. Kids sign up through their school.
“I have a younger brother who’s 14 and he’s online all the time and I can’t even get on my dad’s computer (because) he’s got so many firewalls up to protect my brother from stuff, so it’s a real meaningful issue, especially for me. A lot of my fans are people of that age,” says Lachey of why he got involved. “Besides… caring (about) what happens to people, these are people who are actively involved in my career and my life.”