What happens when a Large Ham meets The Power of Rock.
Thomas Jacob Black (born August 28, 1969), better known as Jack Black, is an American actor, comedian, and musician, as well as the best pal of Kyle Gass. Together, they formed Tenacious D!
Black's comedic style combines many key elements from both sides of the traditional double act. Black typically begins a skit in which he presents an earnest introduction to a premise or subject that quickly reveals itself to be flawed or fundamentally ludicrous. Black then switches completely to a far-extreme caricature of human emotion. His would-be straight-man Gass often functions to trigger these outbursts. Even when appearing in a movie that many consider a flop, he's said to be able to make it bearable through his appearances alone — his role as the villainous bully in The Neverending Story III Escape From Fantasia was claimed by many to be the only good thing about it.
Black first appeared in an un-aired pilot episode for a show directed by Ben Stiller and written by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab called Heat Vision and Jack where he played an ex-astronaut pursued by actor Ron Silver. He was accompanied by his friend who had merged with a motorcycle, voiced by Owen Wilson. This pilot led to him forming a friendship with Harmon and Schrab which resulted in him making many cameos for Channel 101.
In 2000, Black appeared in High Fidelity as a wild employee in John Cusack's record store, a role which Black himself considered his breakout. The film also reunited him with Tim Robbins, who had appeared with Cusack and Black in Bob Roberts eight years earlier. His career soon led to leading roles in films such as Shallow Hal, Orange County, School of Rock, Envy, Shark Tale, King Kong (2005), Nacho Libre, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Be Kind Rewind, the Kung Fu Panda series, and Tropic Thunder. (Oh, and two video games.)
Prior to his becoming known for his comedies, a lot of his early acting career involved bit parts in serious movies (he played a crazed assassin in Bob Roberts, the brother of Sean Penn's death row inmate in Dead Man Walking, and in Enemy of the State he played one of the NSA tech-support agents, to name three examples). King Kong (2005) can be considered his first serious role as a star, though he mellowed down his comedic persona a bit in The Holiday and Margot At The Wedding.
In 2009, he starred pretty much As Himself in Tim Schafer's Brütal Legend (only, like, six feet taller and really buff), alongside Kyle Gass, Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy Kilmister, and Rob Halford. This meeting also allowed him to start a friendship with Schafer, nailing him a minor role in Double Fine's next big game, Broken Age.
Unfortunately, as the turn of the 2010s approached, Black's career began to go down a different track. After a praised role in Tropic Thunder, he got cast alongside Michael Cera in the prehistoric comedy Year One, which tanked considerably at the box office and was destroyed by critics. Worse still, it was said to have finally revealed a Typecasting habit that he'd upheld in previous films, resulting in the upset of many audiences. His next big film, a film adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, was a massive domestic flop, which dealt an even bigger blow to his career.
His subsequent appearances were in films that didn't fare much better critically and/or commercially (with the exception of Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Muppets, in which he played a key cameo appearance). Bernie seemed to be a Career Resurrection for him, but despite winning critical acclaim, it never got to a wide release. However, his next major film after Bernie, the film adaptation of Goosebumps (where he played a fictionalized version of R. L. Stine, the series' creator), was well-received by critics and moviegoers and was a moderate box office success. Black's next live-action film, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, was an acclaimed box-office smash, and Black himself received praise for pulling off a Gender Bender performance that didn't reduce the character to a joke (despite being comic relief). He also starred in The House With a Clock in Its Walls, an Eli Roth adaptation of the book of the same name alongside Cate Blanchett and Kyle MacLachlan.
Near the end of 2018, he started a "gaming" channel called Jablinski Games
, mostly run and edited by his son. In other words, it's Jack Black hanging out with his kids and co-stars of his movies while being Jack Black. The channel amassed over a million subscribers after word got out about its existence as soon as the first video was uploaded.
2021 saw another collaboration with Double Fine, appearing as a brain in a jar in Psychonauts 2. The same year also saw him announced as the voice of Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie from Illumination Entertainment. He will follow that up with another video game adaptation, playing Claptrap in Eli Roth’s adaptation of Borderlands. He also reprised his role as Po in Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight and also appeared in the fourth film in the franchise.
Black is a member of the Frat Pack, a group of comedy actors who frequently work together. This group also includes Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Steve Carell.
Not to be confused with the Victorian-era rat-catcher of the same name, Black Jack, the character of the same name in Viz, or Jack Noir.
Partial Filmography:
Film
- Bob Roberts (1992): Roger
- Demolition Man (1993): Wasteland Scrap
- The Neverending Story III Escape From Fantasia (1994): Slip
- Water World (1995): Pilot
- Dead Man Walking (1995): Craig Poncelet
- The Cable Guy (1996): Rick Legatos
- Mars Attacks! (1996): Billy Glenn Norris
- Enemy of the State (1998): Fielder
- High Fidelity (2000): Barry
- Saving Silverman (2001): J.D. McNugent
- Shallow Hal (2001): Hal Larson
- Orange County (2002): Lance Brumder
- Ice Age (2002): Zeke
- School of Rock (2003): Dewey Finn
- Envy (2004): Nick Vanderpark
- Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004): Motorcyclist
- Shark Tale (2004): Lenny
- King Kong (2005): Carl Denham
- Nacho Libre (2006): Ignacio / Nacho
- Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006): JB
- The Holiday (2006): Miles
- Be Kind Rewind (2008): Jerry Gerber
- Kung Fu Panda (2008): Po
- Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
- Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
- Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)
- Tropic Thunder (2008): Jeff “Fats” Portnoy
- Year One (2009): Zed
- Gullivers Travels (2010): Lemuel Gulliver
- Bernie (2011): Bernie Tiede
- The Muppets (2011): Himself
- Goosebumps (2015): R.L. Stine / Slappy
- The Polka King (2017): Jan Lewan
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017): Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberan
- Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
- The House With a Clock in Its Walls (2018): Jonathan Barnavelt
- Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022): Adult Stan
- Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022): Wolfman Jack
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023): Bowser
- Borderlands (2024): Claptrap
Television:
- Tenacious D (1997-2000): JB
- Heat Vision and Jack (1999): Jack Austin
- Take Two with Phineas and Ferb (2010): Himself
- Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight (2022-2023): Po
- The Mandalorian (2023): Captain Bombardier
- History of the World Part II (2023): Josef Stalin
Video Games:
- Brütal Legend (2013): Eddie Riggs
- Psychonauts 2 (2022): Psi-King/Helmut Fullbear
Tropes
- Approval of God: In some of the octagon Voice Clip Song videos on YouTube, he posted comments as JablinskiGames giving the videos praise. His now-private liked videos playlist consisted almost solely of these videos.
- Cloudcuckoolander: A lot of his film roles are characters with their heads in the clouds, both live-action and animation.
- Creator Backlash: He's often expressed regret for getting paid as much as he did for Shallow Hal, a role he was entirely dissatisfied with.
- Creator's Favorite: Commented that his favorite role out of everything he's done is voicing Po in the Kung Fu Panda films.
- Large Ham: In a lot of his roles, he can devour scenery like nobody's business.
- Playing Against Type: While The D Train at first seems like a typical Bromantic Comedy, with a Black slightly against type Uptight Loves Wild, but the halfway point marks a major change to both the film's tone and Black's character, taking it to a much darker place than audiences are used to with his roles.
- Trolling Creator: Black's "gaming channel" is actually a bunch of vlogs of him going to arcades or playing on pinball machines (which are technically precursors to video games anyways). When he seemingly started to finally play a video game (Fortnite) with the standard Let's Play format, he turns out to only be pretending to play and goes right back to old school stuff.
