Joe Jonas sings his way onto the big screen in Transylvania Hotel 3
THE man who embraced Sydney as his temporary home has swapped his mentor role on The Voice Australia to star as an animated sea monster in Hotel Transylvania 3.
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JOE Jonas need never fear being typecast. While the US singer with the dreamy eyes and perfectly-tousled hair might be expected to play the heart-throb in a romance movie, he has ended up in the role of the Kraken in Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation. That’s right, the former boy band member is playing the part of a huge, ugly sea monster.
But audiences will still swoon. Though his animated character looks more like Jabba the Hutt, the Kraken will melt you with his voice as a crooning lounge star in the latest instalment of the hit animated franchise, out this week.
“My character is a massive kraken who is really famous in the monster world and he’s really intimidating when you first see him but then he starts singing and all the characters are swooning and melting (literally),” Jonas tells BW Magazine.
The frontman of hugely successful band DNCE, Jonas has been living in Sydney on and off since January as part of his role as a coach on Nine’s The Voice Australia.
He has become a true local in his temporary home at Bondi Beach, taking up lawn bowls at Bondi Bowling Club and regularly participating in what he considers the very Australian pastime of having brunch. To put it simply — Jonas has become an honorary Aussie.
He has been snapped around Sydney with his fiance, Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner, and showing his visiting brothers, Nick and Kevin, around his new neighbourhood.
In May he even posted a photo on Instagram of himself at an NRL game decked out in Penrith Panthers gear with the hashtag #PantherPride. But he insists he isn’t officially throwing his support behind any team just yet.
Fans of The Voice will be familiar with Jonas’ enthusiasm for learning all about his temporary home, often spouting snippets of trivia about Australia on the show.
“There are so many great people here and the food’s amazing,” Jonas says.
“I’ve been based in Bondi and I’m so lucky to be able to wake up and go down to the beach every day and try amazing brunches, you guys love your brunch.
“The golf courses are fantastic and everyone is so laid-back and I am starting to feel like an honorary Aussie.”
You would think it would be pretty easy to pick a Joe Jonas fan — or so he thought. The US singer, whose song Cake By The Ocean has been streamed more than a billion times, says even he’s surprised by the Aussie fans The Voice attracts.
“It’s really interesting to see who actually watches the show,” Jonas says.
“I was at a golf course and this rugby player-looking guy was behind the desk and he goes, ‘You’re on The Voice, right?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and I didn’t think much of it but then he said, ‘I love your team,’ and he started naming everyone in my team and I was like ‘Oh, you’re actually a fan.’ You never know who’s going to be a fan.”
While his Jonas Brothers days are far behind him, Joe remains close to his siblings with whom he found fame as a teen boy band member in 2005 when he — the middle of the three Jonas boys — was 16. They released four albums and appeared in the popular Disney movies Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2.
But it could be that breaking up the band in 2013 helped foster and strengthen the relationship between them.
“Instead of things kind of fizzling out or hitting a point where we were butting heads too much, because we are brothers after all, we decided to take a step back and do our own thing,” he explains.
“I have this amazing relationship with my brothers now. I’ve always had that but now we’re just family, and we still do a lot of stuff together, like writing and producing.
“I recently jumped up on stage with Nick and it was fun because it wasn’t planned and it was because we support each other, we go and see each other’s shows and I feel we have a more honest, open relationship and it’s not like I have to see the person every single second of every day.”
* Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation opens June 28