"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
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AN INTERVIEW WITH:
JACK BLACK
by Peter Sobczynski
October 3, 2003
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To paraphrase the time-honored ESPN cliché: you cannot stop Jack Black-you can only hope to contain him.
Over the last few years, the ebullient performer has become a cult hero to many thanks to his scene-stealing film parts (such as the know-it-all record store clerk in the great "High Fidelity" and as the title character in "Shallow Hal") and as one half of the rock duo Tenacious D. In his latest film, the hugely enjoyable comedy "The School of Rock", he has his showiest role to date as Dewey Finn, a struggling rocker who has the passion to be a rock god but lacks the chops. Broke, he poses as a substitute teacher in a posh elementary school. When he discovers that his charges are talented musicians, he decides to use his knowledge to school them in the history and meaning of rock music and mold them into a group in order to win an upcoming Battle of the Bands.
It sounds like a dopey formula comedy but it winds up being a deeply satisfying crowd-pleaser and a lot of that is due to Black's performance. Instead of toning his edgy persona down in order to attract a wider, younger audience (the kind of thing that has pretty much neutered the career of people like Eddie Murphy), the film, directed by Richard Linklater ("Dazed and Confused") , allows Black to be himself and he turns in the kind of performance that truly does deserve to be compared with the work of john Belushi-he manages to act completely over-the-top, yet he manages to retain a certain innocence and likability that keeps audiences rooting for him.
Recently, just before heading off to Wrigley Field to sing
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at a crucial Cubs game
(where he concluded his performance by exhorting to the crowd
"LET'S DRINK SOME RUM!"), Black sat down to discuss
the film, his attempts at wild rock-star behavior, his own personal
education in the school of rock and the evil that is Billy Joel.
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So, what is it like having a movie designed specifically around you?
It feels good-me likes it. It's the first time that someone [Mike White] has written a part with me in mind. It was kind of like calling up Ferrari and saying "I'd like a blue Ferrari with flames and a turbo-booster button." Although he didn't make it to my specifications, we are friends and he knows my voice and what I like to do. I'd like them all to be like that.
We were neighbors years ago-that is how we met-and on this film, since he plays my roommate in the movie, we pulled a DeNiro Method Acting thing and actually got a loft in New York and lived together while making the film. We had a really bitchin pad. You know that on movies, they give you some money to get a hotel room-an allowance, if you will. When we pooled our resources together, we were able to get the swankiest party pad in all of Tribeca-a monster loft that covered an entire city block. The living room was rad because it didn't look like there was a TV in it-it looked like a very intellectual living room where reading would take place-but you would hit the remote control and suddenly the WHOLE WALL would become a TV!
Any rock star-style loft trashings to speak of?
Not really. I don't really do that. There was a fire-hey, it was in the fireplace? I lit both fireplaces and I don't think that anyone had lit a fire in there-I opened the flumes but I think they were clogged or something-and the whole apartment was filled with smoke. The fire alarm went off and the ceilings were 30 feet high, so I had to get a ladder and rip it out of the hinges because it was one of those without a battery that is wired directly into the system. It was so smoky that I had to open all the windows but it was the coldest winter in the history of New York and it was something like 10 below outside. It was freezing, smoky and noisy-that was Hell Night and that was the closest I came to trashing it.
Well...we did have a Christmas tree-even though I'm a Jew, I thought it would be fun to get into the spirit of the season. I'd never had one before and I didn't know that you were supposed to...uh...
Water it?
No, no, no. I think you are supposed to put a trash bag over it when you are taking it out. I just dragged it out and about one billion tree needles fell on the floor-through the hall, into the elevator, through the downstairs hallway. It took something like three hours for me and Mike to pick up the needles and bundle them up. It was important because the janitor, we were pretty sure that he was in the Mafia and we were both scared of him. We wanted to clean it up before he saw. There are still some needles there, probably.
In working with the kids in "The School of Rock", how much of their direction came from your lead?
Very little. I don't like to get in the way of the director-when there are two directors on a set, it's like "Mutiny on the Bounty". He [Richard Linklater] is really good at working with kids and working with actors in general, so I would just follow his instincts. I wanted them to be good and funny so I would try to give them what they needed off-camera. A lot of times, what people need is for you not to distract them so they can concentrate on what they are doing. I would be off-camera doing nothing-giving them the blank slate
I'm trying to think if I ever gave them advice on how to rock properly. I didn't really have to because when they cast the kids, the most important thing was that they had kick-ass musical chops. At 10 years old, it is hard to find those kids and we looked at thousands of them throughout the country and found the most kick-ass ones. They are actually better than me at their instruments-they were sort of like my peers.
Two of the kids cast are from the Chicago area...
Yeah, Kevin Clark and Rebecca Brown, the drummer and the bass player. Kevin is kind of pissed at me for not hanging out more often-he doesn't understand that I am a very busy man and I give what I can. Reeba-Deeba, she's funny and we had good scenes together. There was one thing; Kevin interviewed me for his school newspaper and I swear, it was probably the best interview I have ever given. I gave him every secret nugget of the industry and of rock that I knew. Then, apparently, his mom taped over the interview later that day-she was recording her laundry list or something-and the world will never know what it has lost. It could have been a very powerful document.
How are you like Dewey Finn, the character you play in the film?
We share the love of rock and we are both very intense. He is like me in an alternative universe where I didn't have any success. I can relate to it because it was only a few years ago that I was still struggling to get by and had the fear that I would have to go back and live at my mom's house. I lot of the people I know have that fear-it is a very competitive industry and if you don't have something to fall back on, there is a lot of anxiety and desperation
We also look a lot alike. It sounds ridiculous, but a lot of the characters I've played don't look like me. They are business-suit guys who work in an office and that really isn't me. it was good to grab my own clothes and tell them that this is what Dewey would wear.
Also, Dewey is the better musician. I said that we put a lot of importance in having the kids be amazing musicians but unfortunately, I could not play my own parts. I sang my own songs but the guitar solos...I am not a solo artist. I do power chords only and leave the solos to my partner in my real band. Whenever there is a shredding guitar solo in the movie, that isn't me. It seems like me because I move my hands around really well. The s----- solos in the movie, though, are me.
What was it like working on the film with Richard Linklater? In your career, you have worked with several strong directors-such as Tim Burton and Tim Robbins-but they were making films that were typical for them. With Linklater, though, "The School of Rock" is quite a departure from his artier films like "Slacker" and "Waking Life".
I was a little worried going into it because I love all his films-they have great integrity and a sense of artistic pacing-but I had never seen anyone in one of his films do a super-broad comedic turn and I was planning on pulling off some of that high-energy ridiculousness with this movie. He assured me that we were going to be able to work together fine and we did. In fact, he did pull me back a little bit, believe it or not. It is super-broad but I could have been ridiculously broad and he would keep me in the realm of reality as much as possible.
I was stoked to work with him because I knew that he wouldn't let it turn into a cornfest, a cheese-ball extravaganza that any kids movie runs the risk of becoming. I had to watch my mouth, obviously-I didn't drop any F-bombs in the class when the kids were around. I didn't hold back, though. It was not a softer, gentler Jack Black performance. In fact, I actually went a bit further than usual to make up for the fact that there were no dirty words. I wanted to rock those kids! They were scared at first, a little bit, but they got used to it and soon they were digging it.
How difficult is it to seemingly go over-the-top without actually going over-the-top?
Usually, it is just over-the-top and I get criticized for it. I love scenery chewers. I love Jim Carrey and Chris Farley-these are my heroes. Even great actors who aren't comedians, I like to see them go too far. Jack Nicholson got a lot of flack in "The Shining" but I thought that was his best performance. A lot of people don't like the "new" Al Pacino and wonder what happened to the quiet, subtle one from "The Godfather". I love the new one-I can't get enough of him in stuff like "Heat".
I don't worry about it unless it ruins a scene or it becomes all about the screaming idiot. I don't want to hurt the story, so that is the only time that I try to tone it done.
How did you first get your education in the school of rock?
I liked Journey and Styx when I was young and while that is rock, it isn't hard rock. Then I went to a record store to get the new Journey album and there was this older kid who was like, "Don't get that-do yourself a favor and buy this instead", and he gave me Ozzy Osbourne's "Blizzard of Ozz". I bought it and it changed my world and it turned me to the dark side. There was something about the dark side, as it were, and sinister nature of heavy metal that was very attractive to me.
After that, I was a metalhead but I also got into some other embarrassing things. Everyone has some ridiculous music that they liked at one time or another. Stuff like Billy Joel. Billy Joel is the most embarrassing of all in retrospect. I saw him on some "Storytellers" thing talking about the history of rock and politics and he just thinks he is such a genius. He had some catchy tunes early on, though.
Explain, as your character does in the movie, the importance of fighting The Man and how rock music can aid in the ongoing battle.
Music is a big part of it but there aren't that many bands who rail against The Man anymore. Once in a while, you'll hear someone like Fugazi or Rage Against the Machine. Now, there is System of a Down, but they will be hardcore-one minute-singing against American involvement in the Middle East-and then they'll be singing about pizza toppings. There is something missing in music today, a sort of social awareness and anger that is the trademark of great rock bands like The Clash. It doesn't have to be anger but it had to be passionate. That is what makes a great song.
I think one of the lame things about The Man is the war on drugs. Have you seen these anti-marijuana commercials? They are so retarded that they are funnier than "Reefer Madness" You know, the one where the guys are smoking at a drive-thru window and run over a little kid and the one where the guy at a party gives a girl a joint and immediately goes in for the date rape because she is comatose. These things are made by people who never smoked weed and they are spending millions of dollars on these stupid commercials that aren't helping anyone. It doesn't hurt anyone-if it eats away some of your short-term memory loss, that should be your decision.
What about the rumblings of a Tenacious D. feature film. After your musical moments in films like "High Fidelity", "Run Ronnie Run" and "The School of Rock", could this be the full-scale Jack Black musical extravaganza that America has been waiting for?
We just finished writing it. It is called "Tenacious D:
The Pick of Destiny" and we're going to shoot it next year.
I feel like "The School of Rock" as my crowning achievement-the
thing I've been wanting to do for a long time. Will the D movie
surpass it? I don't know-it is totally different and not grounded
in any kind of reality. Besides, it is MINE!!!
-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI
Copyright © 2003 Peter Sobczynski
All rights reserved.
Used with permission
Peter's Film Review
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