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Interview: Jack Black Gets SeriousBy Fred Topel: 2006-06-15 00:00:00
Jack Black is a funny man both in his movies and in person, but even when he’s cracking jokes, he does not dismiss his work. Comedy is a serious business and Black has honed his business from an interstitial act on HBO to a major movie star. His latest film Nacho Libre joins him with Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess and puts him in a pair of tights and jiggling his flab around a wrestling ring.
“Mainly it was wanting to work with Jared Hess,” Black says. “Great director, loved Napoleon Dynamite and I wanted me some of that Dynamite action, some of that sweet, nappy D. Good stuff. So me and my partner Mike White, we got a movie company now called Black and White. We called him up and said, ‘Hey, let’s party.’ And he said, ‘It’s a coincidence. I wanted to party with you guys because I liked School of Rock.’ So, we hung out and tried to think of something to do and he was like, ‘You know, I’ve always been really obsessed with Mexican wrestling, with Lucha Libre. Would you want to be in a movie where you were a Mexican wrestler?’ And I was like, ‘Well, if you’re at the helm, my friend, I will go with you.’” With Nacho Libre as his first feature film production, Black didn’t let the power go to his head. “There's virtually no distinction. The only difference was that we were the boss. There was nobody that was the father figure telling us to have homework done, or this or that. We were self-governing. It's like going to college as opposed to high school, when you're producing your own movie. The freedom is there and it's good. I think we were good producers. It's just you have to be filled with opinions. You can't just be like, 'I don't know. What do you want?' You have to really think about every aspect of the movie and weigh in and oversee other people's stuff.” Of course, Black always contributes to his characters, so this is just the next step. “Even before I was producing movies, I would be interested in some of those things and have opinions on some of those things and just not voice them. Sometimes I would voice them, but now it’s part of my job to voice them and be part of the hiring of the crew and the different positions and being in all the meetings about scheduling and promotion and all the different aspects of the movie. I liked it. It was fun.” That included discovering Hector Jimenez, the Mexican actor who plays Nacho’s skinny but speedy tag team partner. “He's worked in Mexico. I don't think he's a big star, but he was a great find for us, because when were auditioning people in Mexico, he just jumped off the screen. He had a real natural hilarious way about speaking and he was just seemed like a really obvious choice. I had a great time working with him.” Mexico may become the new Canada or Australia since Black is spreading the word about shooting there. “We got some of the best locations. I think a lot of people are going to want to go down and shoot more movies in Oaxaca after they see this movie, because it's stunning. We were going to go and party with some guy who I guess was some big muckety-muck, it doesn't matter. The people there that we saw in the streets were all stoked to have us there. We didn't cause too much trouble. And I know that the restaurant that I went to every night was stoked that I was there. I plucked down a lot of pesos for the various delicious dishes. I had a lot of chicken mole.” Black continues to compose music as well, with a Tenacious D movie coming out in the fall. Nacho Libre features a song by Black and crew too. “I write the songs that make the whole world sing. I did write the song in the locker room with Jared and Mike. We all jammed that out together. I was stoked that came out funny. It's my specialty, writing bad songs that are also really good.” Black has also been heavily involved in the marketing of the film, contributing to podcasts and filming confessionals on the set before even making the press rounds. “It's just somebody in marketing at Paramount was like, 'All the kids are watching the iTunes iPodcasts. We need to get in on the latest technological way to...' And so they gave me a video camera and said, 'Can you just videotape yourself every day?' And I said, 'No. But I'll do it once or twice a week.' So that's why there are some pretty grumpy podcasts in there, where I woke up like I did today and had to go to work and then talk to the camera for extra credit. I'm glad we did that, because now I look at them and laugh looking back. It's like a video diary. Wish I had a real video diary of my life, kind of. I should have been doing that podcast for myself, every couple days for the last f***ing 36 years. That'd be unbelievable.” His next movie, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, will feature a rockin’ soundtrack by Black and White. “We do not have a single picked out really. The music is all built for the movie and it all comes out of the story and it rocks very, very hard. We’ve got Dr. G back on the drums. They can expect The Devil and they can expect The Yetti. And they can expect Meatloaf and Ronnie James Dio. We got them all for the movie soundtrack.” With his movie career continuing to grow, Black has no fear about attempting more dramatic projects or being as silly as Nacho Libre again. “Like I said, I wait for the people that interest me that do work that turns me on, whether it be comedy or drama or any of that. I’m just interested in working with interesting people. [Noah] Baumbach was a cool experience. I loved The Squid and the Whale, so funny in a really dramatic way. That was a change of pace for me to do something real and I liked that too.” Nacho Libre is now playing.
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June 17, 2006 at 17:05