Jack Black

This article is about the American actor. For other people with the name Jack Black, see Jack Black (disambiguation).

Jack Black
Jack Black at the King Kong premiere in Berlin
Spouse	Tanya Haden

Jack Black (born Thomas J. Black, Jr., August 28, 1969), is an American actor, comedian and musician. Black and Kyle Gass are the comedy/rock duo Tenacious D. He is considered a core member of the Frat Pack, a group of comedians active in today's Hollywood films, though unlike several of the groups members he is also in demand for Hollywood blockbusters and indie films.

Biography

Early life

Black was born in Redondo Beach, California to Thomas William Black and Judith Love Cohen. His mother is Jewish and his father converted to Judaism when he married Black's mother.[1] He grew up in Hermosa Beach in a tumultuous home environment where his parents’ constant battling left him scarred. In a last-ditch effort to save the marriage, his parents briefly joined a polyamorous group, Family Synergy. They divorced when he was ten; both parents eventually remarried. As a child, Black appeared in an early Atari Pitfall commercial, which was later shown during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Jack moved to Culver City with his father but frequently visited his mother’s home until the end of his first year of high school when his father’s family moved abroad. Black started taking drugs in an attempt to fit in and stole money from his mother to buy cocaine, but realized he had a problem and started therapy soon after.

At the beginning of his freshman year in high school, Black eagerly accepted his parents' suggestion to attend the Poseidon School, a private academy. His reasoning included a fear of bullies in the public school and a need to deal with his drug problem. Black also attended Crossroads School, where he excelled in drama. When Jack dropped out of UCLA in his sophomore year to pursue a career in the entertainment business, Black’s father discontinued financial support. Fellow UCLA veteran Tim Robbins later cast Jack in Bob Roberts, his first film role. Black also had recurring roles on the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show.

Music career

File:Tenacious d.jpg

Black with Tenacious D partner Kyle Gass

Black is the lead singer for the rock comedy band Tenacious D, which perhaps owes much of their popularity to Black's unorthodox, humorous lyrics. Tenacious D's fans often cite his skilled satire of hard rock and metal as much as they do the band's musicianship. Black's singing style is often described as being an odd scat type of music. For example, in the song "Wonderboy", one of his lines is "Rrrigga-gyu-gyu Rrrigga-gyu-gyu", an example of his verbalized guitar solo. This type of singing appears in many Tenacious D songs in place of a melodic or ripping guitar sound. Black has dubbed this form of singing the "ventrili-solo." Black has also performed a two-part scat with bandmate Kyle Gass in the song "Tribute". Tenacious D has only released one album, the self-titled Tenacious D.

Jack Black has also appeared on Dave Grohl's PROBOT album, providing vocals for the hidden song "I Am The Warlock", and Liam Lynch's Fake Songs album, providing vocals for the song "Rock and Roll Whore".

Comedic style

Jack Black’s unique comedic style combines many key elements from both-sides of the traditional double act. Black typically begins a skit/bit in a clearly articulate character thus embodying some aspects of the straight man. He straightly presents an ernest, even reverent introduction to a premise or subject that quickly reveals itself to be flawed or fundamentally ludicrous and then amplifies the outrageousness of the subject beyond recovery. At or about this exact point of climax, Black switches completely to a far-extreme caricature of human emotionality. His would-be straight-man Kyle is often reduced to being a mere trigger event. Tenacious D’s subject matter illustrates this technique:

1. In "Tribute", TD isn’t telling a story in which they offered a good or even great song to a demanding audience, they claim to have performed “The Best Song in the World” for a “Shiny Demon” who would otherwise “eat their souls”.
2. In "Inward Singing", Black doesn’t merely discover a new technique, he discovers “the most powerful tool in singing technology since yodelling”.

Personal life

Black dated actress and comedian Laura Kightlinger from 1997 until 2005. In January 2006, he became engaged to his current wife Tanya Haden (daughter of the famous jazz double bassist Charlie Haden), whom he began dating after his split from Kightlinger in 2005. Haden and Black eloped in March 2006; Black spent US$220,000 on a ring for her. Their first child, son Samuel Jason, was born on June 10, 2006.

Black has admitted to using ecstasy during the filming of King Kong with another member of the crew whose identity he refuses to reveal. He has clarified that it does not reflect on his overall behavior during filming.

Selected filmography

Black in the School of Rock poster

Black in the Nacho Libre poster

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
2008	Kung Fu Panda	Po	Voice only
2007	Be Kind Rewind	Jerry
	Them	Unknown
2006	Master of Space and Time	Unknown
	The Holiday	Miles
	Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny	Himself
	Nacho Libre	Nacho
2005	King Kong	Carl Denham
2004	Shark Tale	Lenny	Voice only
	Envy	Nick Vanderpark
2003	School of Rock	Dewey Finn
2002	Orange County	Lance Brumder
	Ice Age	Zeke	Voice only
2001	Shallow Hal	Hal Larson
	Saving Silverman	J.D. McNugent
2000	High Fidelity	Barry
1999	Jesus' Son	George
	Cradle Will Rock	Sid
1998	Enemy of the State	Fiedler
1997	The Jackal	Ian Lamont
1996	Mars Attacks!	Bobby
	The Cable Guy	Rick
1995	Waterworld	Floatplane Pilot
	Dead Man Walking	Craig Poncelet
1994	The NeverEnding Story III	Slip
1993	Airborne	Augie
1992	Bob Roberts	Roger Davis

• Jack Black and School of Rock were referenced in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, via a pornography spoof titled "School of Cock" starring "Jack Blackcock."
• Before he was a big star, in 2000 he was referenced in the spoof film Scary Movie. Characters in the film talk about how annoying his Jamaican stoner character in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is. Shawn Wayans' character (Ray) comments, "Ohh, I want to kill that motherfucker."
• Strangely enough, he was the host of the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards and the 2006 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, after criticizing it for "killing rock n roll" in The School of Rock.

Salaries

• $2,000,000 - Orange County (2002)
• $2,000,000 - Shallow Hal (2001)
• $1,000,000 - Saving Silverman (2001)

Trivia

Jack Black appears for a short appearance in an episode of the Golden Girls spin-off series the Golden Palace as a taxi driver in 1992.

Jack Black appears in a commercial for the fortune-500 company, Berkinator Trio.

Jack Black appeared in a Celebrity Deathmatch episode in a match against Jack White. He lost.

Guest appearances

In addition to those of Tenacious D, Black has appeared in the following music videos:

• Beck, "Sexx Laws"
• Dio, "Push"
• Foo Fighters, "Learn To Fly"
• Foo Fighters, "Low"
• Foo Fighters, "The One"
• The Eagles of Death Metal, "I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)"
• Foo Fighters, cover of AC/DC's song "Back in Black" at MTV New Year's Eve Party 2003
• Queens Of The Stone Age, "Burn The Witch"

External links

• Jack Black takes off Lord of the Rings
• Jack Black at IMDb
• The Frat Pack Tribute

Interviews

• Kansas City Star interview (February 28, 2006)
• The Observer interview (November 2005)
• Ugo.com interview (October, 2003)
• Brant Publications interview (October, 2002)
• The Onion AV Club interview (October 31, 2001)
• The Believer Magazine interview