R&B Stud Tyrese Gets Cheeky

Tyrese Gibson (aka Tyrese) may have shown some skin in those sexy Guess? ads, but the R&#038B superstar admits that when he was asked to drop trou in the John Singleton-directed pic, Baby Boy (opening June 27), he got all hot and bothered.

"You just got to hype yourself up and try to get through it," the 22-year-old acting neophyte tells TV Guide Online of his love scene with leading lady Taraji P. Henson. "But once you are doing it and John says, 'Take four, take five,' and 'We're going to do it from three different angles,' it starts eating away at your soul. I'm a real private person; it wasn't easy for me to do those scenes."

Well, on the eve of the film's debut, Gibson seems to have overcome his early rump angst. "My mama hasn't seen my ass cheeks since I was born," he says, "but I'm going to take her to the premiere."

In Baby Boy — a follow-up to Singleton's groundbreaking 1991 urban drama, Boyz N the Hood — Gibson plays Jody, a young father of two who still lives at home with his mom in South Central L.A. It's a path the Watts native could have gone down himself. "It's the difference [between] thinking beneath your years and starting to think beyond your years," he explains. "You're irresponsible when you think for the moment versus the future."

While Gibson plans to give the acting thing a go — he recently auditioned for a role opposite Denzel Washington in the upcoming biopic on sailor-turned-scribe Antwone Fisher — the former MTV personality says he still feels like a Hollywood outcast. "I don't watch movies, I don't know how well movies do, I'm not conscious of directors or how huge my co-star is," he concedes. "So, I'm not really intimidated [working with] superstars. If I were in a movie with Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson or Janet [Jackson], I probably couldn't pull it off. Those are the stars in my eyes."