| Jack Black Interview, Be Kind Rewind |
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| Wednesday, 27 February 2008 | |
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When Jerry attempts to sabotage the power plant he suspects of causing his headaches, he inadvertently causes his brain to become magnetized, leading to the unintentional destruction of all the movies in his friend's store. In order to keep the store's one loyal customer, an elderly lady (Mia Farrow) with a tenuous grasp on reality, the pair re-create – or ‘swede’ -- a long line of films including “The Lion King,” “Rush Hour,” “Ghostbusters,” “When We Were Kings,” “Back to the Future,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” and “Robocop,” putting themselves and their townspeople into it and becoming the biggest stars in their neighborhood.
Jack Black has appeared in many motion pictures, but it was his scene-stealing performance as John Cusack’s sarcastic music store employee in Stephen Frear’s acclaimed comedy “High Fidelity” that cemented his place in the hearts of audiences. In September 2003, Black proved his box office draw with a #1 opening for Paramount Pictures “School of Rock” from producer Scott Rudin, director Richard Linklater and writer Mike White. Black received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
In December 2005, Black was seen in director Peter Jackson’s cinematic blockbuster “King Kong,” joining a cast that included Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Andy Serkis and Colin Hanks. Black most recently was seen co-starring in Noah Baumbach’s “Margot at the Wedding” opposite Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh. He starred in and produced the box office smash “Nacho Libre,” directed by Jared Hess (“Napoleon Dynamite”); and in the ensemble comedy, “The Holiday,” directed by Nancy Meyers and also starring Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz and Jude Law.
Black will next lend his voice to the title role of Dreamworks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda,” which will be released in theaters on June 6th, 2008. He recently completed shooting the Ben Stiller-directed feature “Tropic Thunder” for Dreamworks in Hawaii. In January he began filming “Year One” for director Harold Ramis and Sony.
As the lead singer of the rock-folk comedy group Tenacious D, which he created with friend Kyle Gass, Black starred in the 2006 feature film “Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.” Their self-titled album was released in 2001 and quickly certified at gold-selling status.
Dressed casually and sporting spiky highlighted hair and a beard, here’s what the talented actor and musician had to tell us about his latest film:
Q: OK, the tinting.
JACK BLACK: Yes, I’ve been tinted. Highlights.
Q: For?
JACK BLACK: This was a full blonde hairdo and it’s just growing out. I haven’t dyed it back to the original darker brown because I’m lazy. I just don’t want to use any more chemicals if I don’t have to. And it looks stylish, right? It looks like I went to Vidal Sassoon.
Q: Do you have any project you have to get back to normal for?
JACK BLACK: I do have a project, but I’m going to be wearing a wig. A biblical period comedy.
Q: Are you playing Moses?
JACK BLACK: No, I am not playing anyone famous from the bible. I’m just playing a guy who is wandering through. [Laughter]
Q: I remember a few years ago you said playing King Kong would be the coolest role in “King Kong.” Did it live up to your expectations?
JACK BLACK: Um. Sorry, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, this was a quite a bit shorter shoot. Thirty minutes to shoot this version of ‘King Kong’ versus six months to shoot the other one. But, yeah, it was fun to be the monster for a minute especially with the ingenious toy truck on my face.
Q: Was that your favorite movie to Swede because of your connection to it?
JACK BLACK: That one was so short. That was just part of a montage. That was kind of cool that it was a montage without any edits in it. Did you notice that? It’s kind of brilliant. I don’t think it’s been done. A montage where you don’t edit? Leave it to Michel, the cutting edge of creativity. [Laughter] But, yeah, I think my favorite. I really liked doing ‘Robocop’ because that’s my cup of tea. I love Sci-Fi, action. I’ve always wanted to be the Robocop.
Q: Some people would say “Miss Daisy” was unique.
JACK BLACK: Well, that was a stretch for me. [Laughs] That was me trying to grow. Got on the dress with the worker boots. It was a really good look. Disguised the voice nicely. I’ve not heard from the Tandy estate. No one has called to say ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ yet.
Q: Did you suggest any of the films to be Sweded because you had a great idea on how to do them?
JACK BLACK: No. Yeah, I wanted to do ‘Road Warrior’ and he said ‘No’ and that was fine.
Q: Which movie did you wish they could have Sweded in this film that they didn’t?
JACK BLACK: I love the old Jack Nicholson movies like ‘The Shining.’ ‘Five Easy Pieces’? No. ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ would have been cool.
Q: If they had Sweded one of your films, which one would you have wanted to see them do?
JACK BLACK: I’d like to see them do, ‘Nacho.’ I would like to see someone else in the stretchy pants.
Q: When you were a little kid, did you ever run around with a camera doing your own stuff?
JACK BLACK: Um, I didn’t have a camera, no. I was always pretending to be characters from television or films, but always just sort of like a kid horsing around. No one was filming, but I had a tape recorder. I did a lot of, yeah.
Q: I love the idea of a world where a man in your position would not know the lyrics to the song from “Ghostbusters.” How did you come up with your version of that song?
JACK BLACK: We didn’t have the rights to the song at the time that we were shooting that scene and Michel asked if I would come up with a song that sounded like it, but was not it lyrically or rhythmically so that we couldn’t be [sued]…And I was like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And I just cranked it out. But then we got the rights to the song, so it was a waste of time, except that it has still made it into the movie because it’s pretty funny. It’s funny to go from my really bad version of it to the real song.
Q: So that was just the first thing you came up with?
JACK BLACK: [talk-sings] ‘When you’re walking down the street and you see a little ghost. What are you gonna do? Ghostbusters!’ See, because I know in the original it says, ‘Who are ya gonna call?’ That’s the thing, the hook. But when I said, ‘Whatcha gonna do?,’ Michel said, [French accent] ‘Non! It’s too close. Same rhythm. We will still get sued.’ [Laughs] So I changed it, ‘What are you gonna do?’ That sounds horrible. Horrible!
Q: Can you talk about working with Mos Def?
JACK BLACK: Mos Def is an amazing actor. You wouldn’t know, but he’s the real deal. But you probably did know. He’s a really good actor. He’s really into being – he’s like a method actor. All his motivations have to be real and he lets his characters really breathe and take their time in the reality of the scene which was good for me to have that there. He was my anchor. Kept me on planet earth. He was good.
Q: Was there a lot of ad libbing in the film?
JACK BLACK: There was a lot of improvisation. More so than any movie I’ve ever done. Michel had all the beats down, but when he first pitched the movie, he was saying it was an improv movie. So, I was prepared for that. But he had a lot more written than what I think he was planning on, you know. It was just clearly written by a dude who didn’t speak English. [Laughter] ‘I think what you mean is blah, blah, blah.’ So that was what the improv was, more like translation improv.
Q: How does Michel Gondry interest you as a filmmaker?
JACK BLACK: He interests me in his inventiveness. Like the shot that I was talking about earlier, where you are doing a whole montage, passage of time within one shot, where you’d normally have 15 shots and that would take a whole week to shoot? He’s doing that in one day without any edits. That’s something – he’s stretching the boundaries and leading the way in a lot of ways and I think other people are going to imitate him and it’s fun to be part of that, yeah, carving out some new territory.
Q: How physically demanding was it to play your character?
JACK BLACK: It wasn’t too hard. When I was being magnetized? Yeah, I think I got a little cut on my finger actually, but no, it wasn’t physically demanding too much. The harder part was doing, what’s that movie, ‘Rush Hour 2.’ When I had to fall into the garbage, it was a little bit of a stunt, because there were no pads underneath the garbage. I was like, ‘Michel, can’t we put some pads underneath that garbage that I’m about to dive into?’ And he says, [French accent] ‘Non! You’ll see them. There’s no time!’ And I did it and sure enough, I hurt my elbow a little bit. I got a scratch on my elbow. And he said, [French accent] ‘Don’t be such a babee! You’ve got to keep going.’ [Laughter] Page 2: Interview with Jack Black on Be Kind Rewind
    
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