Jacob Rott has seen the ’90s, and he’s ready for frosted tips to make a comeback. “I haven’t done it yet, but I think it looks so cool,” says the 25-year-old. “It could be very iconic.”
Rott, a member of the German content creation collective turned musical group Elevator Boys, stars as a fictionalized version of himself in the new Amazon Prime film “Back to the 90s.” In the German-language film, an aspiring boy band on the brink of success finds themselves transported back in time to 1995, via an elevator, where they encounter many of the decade’s defining highlights.
The group began talking with Amazon Prime about a collaboration around three years ago. Those early conversations, originally geared around a documentary or reality format, pivoted toward a narrative project.
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“When The Elevator Boys started to do music, we also had a big eye on the older golden generation boy bands,” says Rott, naming the Backstreet Boys and NSync as inspirations, along with newer-gen group One Direction. The film riffs on a genre that includes “Spice World” and MTV’s 2000 boy band satire “2gether.” “We got the chance, together with Amazon Prime, to decide, ‘You know what? The music makes sense, and let’s travel back into the golden era of boy bands and have this adventure rom-com.”
The film premiered in Berlin earlier this week, a few days before its streaming release on Friday. “It was obviously one of the most crazy days of my life,” says Rott. “Between being scared and excited and happy, proud, it was just a mix of everything,” he adds. “But it was beautiful seeing at the premiere all of our friends, family, and other people who worked on this crazy project.”
The five-member group portrays a fictional group in the film, but Rott adds that his role in the film is “very similar” to himself. “I’m also that kind of guy who’s always wanting to give 100 percent — which is not always a positive, because it also can sometimes bring you to more self-doubts and not giving yourself the time that you sometimes need to get inspired to really do great work,” he adds. “There is a line in the movie: ‘art shouldn’t inspire life; life should inspire art.’”
For Rott, the project lands on a particularly resonant note.
“The underlying message is that if you try to achieve something perfect, then you lose the feelings along the way sometimes, and then it makes it less perfect,” he says. “I was sitting there [in the theater], and I was like, ‘You know, sometimes maybe in my day-to-day, I should also get rid of this perfectionism,’” he adds. “Also, the fact that I was looking to my right and left and seeing my best friends achieve this all together, was a beautiful moment.”
Although The Elevator Boys broke out in 2021 through their TikTok video content, the film marks the group’s first foray into long-form acting. They filmed over the course of three months, with the shoot culminating in a big choreographed scene, and also worked with Gary Barlow, the lead singer of ’90s British pop group Take That, to record the film’s title song “1995.”
“ I’m very aware that if you’re not coming from a typical acting background, that people are more likely gonna say, ‘OK, you cannot really see it as a serious movie,’” says Rott, adding that he’s hopeful that viewers will experience “Back to the 90s” as something distinct from their social media identity.
For their premiere, the group leaned into a distinctly ’90s-boy-band aesthetic, working with stylist Marvin Lobodda. Rott wore a vintage sporty-tech Prada jacket, Bottega Veneta turtleneck, and Armani trousers. “ When it comes to styling, it’s always really important that we speak one language through the group, but still have different characters within it,” says Rott, who’s also modeled in runway shows for Versace and L’Oréal Paris and is a frequent front row presence during fashion week.
“A lot of people along the way have asked me, ‘What do you really wanna do? You started off posting stuff online on social media, and then you tapped into the music, and now acting. But what do you wanna do?’” he says. “It’s all founded in the same passion, which is creating something that moves people’s emotions,” he adds. “If there is another role which comes my way, I wouldn’t say no. And until then, we’re gonna keep on pushing this movie and releasing new music together.”
