"Duck!" Chris's scream prompts everyone to drop to their knees near Lake Michigan, where 'Nsync are doing and interview. Then he innocently poins to the water: "Look, a duck."

"Chris is crazy....he needs Ritalin. He's off the wall." says Justin. Christopher Alan Kirkpatrick may be 10 years Justin's senior, but you wouldn't know it. Perpetually messing with the head of visitors unaccustomed to his cutting sense of humor. Chris seems bent on being the ruckus leader. At Teen People's cover shott, he instigates a bout of Riverdance-inspired foot- work, leads his mates in a rousing chorus of Flipmode Squad's "Cha Cha Cha," and stages his own imaginary talk show on which he interrogates the freshly dubbed Loser Lance.

Despite all he energy, Chris's genuine, sweet nature rushes to the surface when, during this waterside chat, a wheelchair-bound fan and her family happen by. Upon he walks right over to greet them.

And there are other surprises: "When I was little, I wanted to be Gene Kelly. He sang and danced," says Chris, who grew up as the only guy in the houseful of women: mom Beverly and four sisters (Molly, 24; Kate, 22; Emily, 16; and Taylor,6). His parents are divorced, and Byron "lives on a boat somewhere," says Chris. "but I don't talk to him that much."

Chris, who went to college with Backstreet Boy Howied Dorough, had once strummed guitar and say R.E.M and Pearl Jam songs at coffee shops. After he moved to Orlando in 1990, he got a gig singing in a '50s-style doo-wop act. That job inspired him to form his own harmony group. In 1995, he started 'Nsync.

"I don't think there's ever been a group like us," Chris says matter-of-factly. "There are groups like us...that you hear the vocals and maybe ther're lip-synching. There are groups like us and you can tell they're singing, then sing a pretty ballad on stools, then [get] right back in their face dancing again."

One of Chris's favorite parts of 'Nsync show is the intro, where they dance to a medley of current hits. Backstreet, he's told, do this too. "We've just flattered that they're doing it now because they didn't do it before." He doesn't sound flattered.