Jack Black

Jack Black (born August 28, 1969, Santa Monica, California, U.S.) is an American actor and musician known for his many film roles, including those in School of Rock (2003), High Fidelity (2000), and Kung Fu Panda (2008). He is the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning comedy rock duo Tenacious D.

Early life and career

Black was born in Santa Monica, California, to Judith Love Cohen and Thomas Black, who both worked as satellite engineers. In a 2003 interview with Newsweek magazine, Black recalled, “I didn’t inherit any of their brain power. But I have the power to rock. They’re rocket scientists. I’m a rock scientist.” Black’s parents divorced when he was 10 years old, which deeply affected him and left him seeking attention and approval. When he was 13 years old, he appeared in a television commercial for the Activision home video game Pitfall! In the same Newsweek interview, he described how appearing in the commercial fueled his desire to pursue an acting career: “I knew that if my friends saw me on TV, it would be the answer to all my prayers. Because then they would have to worship me and everyone would know I was awesome. And I was awesome—for three days. Then it wore off. But it gave me the hunger.” Black attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but he dropped out in his sophomore year to pursue a career as an entertainer. In 1987 he joined the Actors’ Gang, a performance troupe founded by actor-director Tim Robbins, through which he met performers Kyle Gass and John Cusack, with whom he would later collaborate.

Black went on to land a series of minor roles in various film and television projects, including a part in the 1992 political satire film Bob Roberts, which was written and directed by Robbins, and recurring roles alongside Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, and other comic actors in the sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David (1995–96). His breakout performance came in 2000 when he portrayed the energetic, pretentious record store clerk Barry Judd in the romantic comedy-drama High Fidelity, which featured John Cusack as store owner Rob Gordon. Black showcases his range as a vocalist in a climactic concert scene with a stirring rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”

Superstardom

After his performance in High Fidelity, Black rose to megastardom with the 2003 film School of Rock, which was written for Black by actor and screenwriter Mike White, who was Black’s neighbor at the time. Black plays slacker Dewey Finn, who, having been dismissed from his rock band and being unemployed, impersonates his roommate Ned Schneebly (played by White) and takes a job as a substitute schoolteacher. Finn soon finds himself organizing his unsuspecting students into a rock band so they can join in a battle-of-the-bands competition. The film was a critical and commercial success, earning $131.1 million against its $35 million budget. In the 2018 feature story “15 Years Later: The Oral History of School of Rock,” published by Paramount Pictures, White remembered, “I had the idea of [Black] leading a band of little kids—somehow it just seemed like a funny visual. Then I got the idea that it would be fun to have him be more of a W.C. Fields [character]…, like a guy who isn’t really somebody you’d want around kids, but that’s part of the fun of it.”

Black continued to land prominent film roles, such as a starring role with Ben Stiller in the dark comedy Envy (2004). He portrayed arrogant film director Carl Dehnam in Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of the 1933 film King Kong. In 2006 he collaborated with White again, this time in the wrestling comedy film Nacho Libre. White cowrote the film’s screenplay, and Black starred as a cook at an orphanage run by monks who secretly becomes a luchador (Mexican professional wrestler) to raise money for the orphanage and thereby win the heart of a beautiful nun.

In 2008 Black starred alongside Stiller and Robert Downey, Jr., as lowbrow comedian-actor Jeff Portnoy in the action-comedy film Tropic Thunder. That same year Black voiced the role of the panda Po in the animated comedy film Kung Fu Panda, and he reprised the role in Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016), and Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024). He also contributed voice-acting performances to the films Ice Age (2002), Shark Tale (2004), Goosebumps (2015), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). In 2017 he portrayed Professor Shelly Oberon in the fantasy adventure film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Black also performed in films that blended his flair for comedy with drama and romance. In 2006 he starred with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law in the romantic comedy film The Holiday. The following year he appeared with Jennifer Jason Leigh in director Noah Baumbach’s comedy-drama Margot at the Wedding (2007).

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Tenacious D

When Black met Kyle Gass in the Actors’ Gang troupe, Black was an ambitious acting student, and Gass was one of the troupe’s house musicians. Although their relationship got off to a rocky start, they soon became friends and began exchanging ideas about acting and music. Gass taught Black how to play guitar, and Black taught Gass about acting. In 1994 they joined forces to form the comedy rock duo Tenacious D. The duo first performed at Al’s Bar in Los Angeles and played just one song, “Tribute,” which is hailed in its lyrics as “the greatest and best song in the world.” Soon after, Tenacious D, with its unique blend of rock theatrics and comedy, began headlining shows at Los Angeles clubs.

Black and Gass went on to star in the cult-favorite HBO comedy series Tenacious D, which ran for six 15-minute episodes from 1997 to 2000. The series presented fictional vignettes of the duo’s failures and triumphs, and it laid the groundwork for concert tours, albums (starting with the eponymous Tenacious D [2001]), a feature film (Tenacious D in “The Pick of Destiny” [2006]), a miniseries (Tenacious D: Post-Apocalypto [2018]), and music videos (such as “Tribute” [2002]). Tenacious D won a 2014 Grammy Award for best metal performance for their rendition of Ronnie James Dio’s rocker “The Last in Line.”

Personal life

From 1997 to 2005 Black was in a relationship with comedian Laura Kightlinger. He married musician Tanya Haden in 2006, and the couple has two sons, Samuel and Thomas. In 2018 Black collaborated with his son Samuel to create the YouTube channel Jablinski Games, which Black describes as focusing on “games, food, and life.” As of October 2023 the channel had more than five million subscribers.