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"FacebookPinterestFacebookPinterest\n\n  By Lauren BansPhotographs by [\n\nPeggy Sirota\n\n](/contributors/peggy-sirota)\n\nThere's a lot to be depressed about right now. Chronic unemployment has men with Master's degrees scrubbing bathrooms at KFC. There's a bunch of orange-y Republicans who look like the cast of The Expendables railing against government\u2014one of whom might very well, and very soon, be in charge of our government. Here's a real statistic: Forty percent of the country believes the end times are nigh. This might have something to do with the fact that, somehow, against all odds, Two and a Half Men continues its laugh track-supported war against American brain cells.\n\n Yet even as the world turns to shit, Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake\u2014Jimmy and Justin, actually, since that sounds more like the boyish playmates that they are\u2014are determined to give audiences something unabashedly joyful. And both of them have had good years making us laugh, with Justin headlining three movies, and Jimmy transforming late night into a 21st century variety show. So GQ convened the two most thrilled-to-be-alive, irony-free, super-duper shamelessly happy men on the planet for a state of the union. And you know what? By the end of this conversation, we felt pretty warm inside.\n\nGQ: How well do you know each other?\n\n Justin Timberlake: We just met the other day.\n\nJimmy Fallon: We met at the photo shoot for this article. No, wait! We met during your N'Sync days. Like some MTV thing.\n\nJustin Timberlake: You're right. It was when you hosted the MTV awards in 2002.\n\nJimmy Fallon: Weirdly enough that was Justin's debut as a solo artist, and the first time I hosted the VMAs. It was a huge deal for him. A lot of pressure. People were saying, is he going to do it? Can he do it? There's no way he can keep the groove! And then he came out of a GIANT BOOMBOX. Do you remember this?\n\nJustin Timberlake: Yep, I remember.\n\nFacebookPinterestundefined\n\nJimmy Fallon: By the way, thank you. I appreciated that gift. And if anyone reading this has like 150,000 D batteries, please call me. I'd love to borrow them. It's real hard to keep that thing juiced.\n\nJustin Timberlake: That was your joke that night, right?\n\nJimmy Fallon: Yeah.\n\nGQ: Wait, you're giving me jokes you used at the MTV VMAs in 2002?\n\n Jimmy Fallon: [laughing] Yeah. That's what we do.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nGQ: Let's talk about how you guys came up with \"History of Rap,\" the most viral video in network late night history. \n\n Jimmy Fallon: We were in your dressing room backstage on SNL.\n\nJustin Timberlake: We were just shooting the shit, right?\n\nJimmy Fallon: You were coming on my show later that week, and I asked, \"What do you want to do?\" We both thought, well we could sing something. I wanted to do Toto's \"Africa.\"We could sing that song really well together.\n\nJustin Timberlake: We should still do it! We should do Toto's \"Africa\" but we should do it as characters.\n\nJimmy Fallon: I was thinking we'd do \"Africa\" as me and you at the age of thirteen. We'd be best friends and have a tape of us having a sleepover and singing \"Africa.\" We can wear wigs and braces .\n\nJustin Timberlake: We were sitting there, and I said, \"Do you remember that guy who did the history of dance?\" He did every song that had a dance or was named after a dance. It was a viral sensation. Then we just started kicking around medley ideas. Jimmy was like, \"What if we did the whole history of all hip-hop and fit in as many songs as we can?\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n Jimmy Fallon: We started improvising right there. We went from Jay-Z to \"The Humpty Dance\" to \"How about this one?\"\n\nJustin Timberlake: Jimmy's a great impressionist and that's what makes it funny\u2014Jimmy Fallon impersonating greats like Snoop and Notorious B.I.G. And, of course, the Roots. If I had the Roots on my show I'd be doing songs every day. Can you imagine if you had a total karaoke session with the Roots? By the way, you should have audience participation karaoke.\n\nJimmy Fallon: That's a good idea. I'm writing it down.\n\nJustin Timberlake: You should try to stump the Roots! Have random audience members come up and make requests. Is there a song they can't play? They can play anything.\n\nJimmy Fallon: I think why those videos have gone so viral is partly because everyone knows and loves those songs. That alone is pretty cool. But when you have Justin Timberlake doing it, it makes it insanely cool. After we did the first \"History of Rap,\" we were on the phone and you were like \"I'm in France now and it's on the front page!\" Le History of le Hip Hop. I was so excited, like \"Dude. They know who I am in France?\" And Justin just goes, \"No.\" Oh, of course. You're Justin Timberlake. That's why this is a huge hit.\n\nGQ: But it also had to do with you web presence, Jimmy. You have more Twitter followers than TV viewers. \n\n Jimmy Fallon: Why not, you know? It's fun. They're college kids, I was a college kid. You've got enough money for ramen noodle soup and Spaghetti-Os. I would have loved it if I got to talk to someone I loved on TV. If I got to tweet Letterman and he tweeted me back. That's the world we live in now. It's possible, anything's possible. It's so great.\n\nGQ: Though Letterman still doesn't tweet...\n\n Jimmy Fallon: I think it'd be weird if he did. It wouldn't be him. He is who he is, he knows what he's doing. It would be odd if he tweeted like crazy. [laughs] Oh man, can you imagine that? But this is what I do. I've always done this. This is just who I am. I like video games, I like tech, I like being positive. I like doing energetic things. I like being absurd. Being silly. It wouldn't fit if it was somebody else trying to do these bits, or if I tried to do somebody else's, you know? Like if I tried to talk politics all week. It'd be weird. Like Jon Stewart already does that every day, and he does it great. He's great at that. Let him do that.\n\nGQ: You both seem ridiculously happy and excited...all the time. \n\n Justin Timberlake: There's a percentage of entertainers who are working so hard\u2014and honestly it looks so exhausting\u2014to act like they don't care that much, that they're not as excitable. But everybody is that excitable. This is a really exciting, fun job.\n\nJimmy Fallon: There's something so fun about taking that risk and doing live stuff. I think we both have that in our DNA. So we're like \"Let's go, man. Is this going to be good? I don't know. But we're about to go live in like ten seconds. Let's perform the hell out of this.\"\n\nJustin Timberlake: And I'm not a comedian so I'll probably get crucified for saying this, but I think with a lot of comedy the impetus behind it is: I've been rejected so many times and I'm bitter and now I'm going to talk about it. It's almost as if The Social Network was a comedy. For me, being earnest and genuine is way easier than acting like you just don't care, like you don't want to be here, like this is a drag. There are just so many things in the world that are a drag. For me it's like, This is a fucking wicked cool job!\n\nGQ: In our comedy issue last year, Tracy Morgan said that cool is the enemy of funny. But you guys are both. How'd you circumvent that rule?\n\n Jimmy Fallon: Tracy says a lot of things.\n\nJustin Timberlake: Tracy also told me I'm five years late to be making babies. He was like  YOU SHOULD BE MAKING BABIES, JUSTIN.\"\n\nJimmy Fallon: [laughing] Yeah, I got the making babies spiel, too.\n\nJustin Timberlake: I JUST GO WHEREEVER I WANT AND I SPREAD MY SEEDS.\n\nGQ: Justin, were you this funny when you were in N'Sync?\n\n Justin Timberlake: What? What are you talking about? I think N'Sync is funny.\n\nJimmy Fallon: [laughing] Yeah, I'll send you some video.\n\nJustin Timberlake: The first job I ever had when I was ten was on a television show, and that show was the same format as SNL, it's just that the writers were writing for kids.\n\nGQ: The Mickey Mouse Club, right?\n\n Justin Timberlake: Yes. That's what it was called.\n\n Jimmy Fallon: Dude, I was just talking to [Ryan] Gosling about that. Did Gosling really live on your couch when he was a kid?\n\nJustin Timberlake: So he tried to make it seem like he was bohemian even back then?\n\nJimmy Fallon: Definitely, man. He said he was struggling and you helped him out.\n\nJustin Timberlake: Ryan's mom had to stay back in Canada and my mom was his guardian for a year so he could come down and be on the show. But Gosling got his own bed. He didn't sleep on the couch. He said that?\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nJimmy Fallon: It's a better story!\n\nJustin Timberlake: I'm picturing a ten-year-old Gosling bumming Marlboro Reds off some bum, growing hipster facial hair...\n\nJimmy Fallon: \"All I got is this one pair of Underoos, man! I got nothing, man!\"\n\nGQ: Justin, what quality do you admire most in Jimmy, and Jimmy, what about Justin? \n\n Jimmy Fallon: Should I plug my ears?\n\nJustin Timberlake: Jimmy's hair. I want Jimmy's hair.\n\nJimmy Fallon: [laughing] It's changed a lot throughout the year so I could see why Justin would be\u2014\n\nJustin Timberlake: Dude, it changes a lot throughout the day.\n\nJimmy Fallon: It really does. On its own! My hair moves itself. It's like those lace-able Back To the Future sneakers. All of a sudden it just changes its part from left to right.\n\nJustin Timberlake: His hair isn't afraid of rejection either.\n\nJimmy Fallon: Justin's got style. I always think, I could never pull that off, but Justin Timberlake can pull that off. Also, he works hard. Top that. Justin, you said hair. Maybe you want to think of something else now?\n\nJustin Timberlake: Um. Dammit.\n\nJimmy Fallon: Say something nice about me! My body?\n\nJustin Timberlake: Stop interrupting me and I will!\n\nJimmy Fallon: You're on a delay. Are you calling from your yacht?\n\nJustin Timberlake: Yep. Hold on, let me put Paul Allen on the phone.\n\nJimmy Fallon: [laughing] GROSS! He's a good reference though.\n\nJustin Timberlake: Hold on, he wants to tell you dirt about the Seattle Seahawks.\n\nJimmy Fallon: OMG, okay. You put Paul Allen on the phone. No problem. I'm gonna put, uh, Paul Anka on the phone. He's just here in my office. We hang out.\n\nJustin Timberlake: Fine, I'll compliment Jimmy. It's not often that you meet people that are as genuinely nice as Jimmy, but he also has this unabashed joy. He's so earnestly curious about what could be funny and what could be exciting.\n\nJimmy Fallon: This is weird, complimenting each other in front of each other.\n\nGQ: C'mon! You guys have to be used to absurd amounts of flattery! You're celebrities.\n\n Justin Timberlake: I was at the movies this one time, and I was going to the bathroom right before I went into the theater and this guy, as he was walking away from the urinal, zipping up his pants as he turns, recognizes me, gets all excited, and makes a beeline for me, his arm out, looking to shake my hand. Listen, I'm not a germaphobe, but c'mon. I literally said to him, \"There's NO fucking way you're not going to wash your hands before you try to shake my hand.\" You just had that hand on your penis.\n\nJimmy Fallon: Justin, if you don't mind, I was drunk when I did that. And I apologize. We weren't going to the same movie, I thought it was coincidental that we were at the same urinal.\n\nLauren Bans is a GQ associate editor\n\nFacebookPinterest"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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