Thomas Jacob Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for roles in family and comedy films, in addition to his voice work in animated films. His awards include an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and nominations for three Golden Globe Awards.
Thomas Jacob Black[3] was born in Santa Monica, California,[4] on August 28, 1969,[5] the son of satellite engineers Thomas William Black and Judith Love Cohen.[6] He was raised in Hermosa Beach, California. His mother worked on the Minuteman nuclear missile guidance system, the Apollo lunar module guidance system and the science ground station for the Hubble Space Telescope, and was also a writer.[7][8][9] He has three older half-siblings through his mother: scientist Neil Siegel, Howard Siegel, and Rachel Siegel.[9] His mother was born Jewish, while his father converted to Judaism. Black was raised Jewish, attending Hebrew school and having a bar mitzvah.[10] His ancestry includes English, German, Irish, Polish, Russian, and Scottish.[11][12]
Black's parents divorced when he was 10,[13] and his father then stopped practicing Judaism.[14][15] Black moved to Culver City with his father and frequently visited his mother's home. As a child, he appeared in a commercial for the Activision game Pitfall! in 1982.[16] For high school, Black's parents enrolled him at the Poseidon School, a private secondary school designed for students struggling in the traditional school system.[17] He also attended the Crossroads School, where he excelled in drama. He later attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),[18] but dropped out during his second year to pursue a career in entertainment.[19] Fellow UCLA student Tim Robbins later cast Black in Bob Roberts. In 1995 and 1996, he gained recurring roles in the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show.[20]
In 2010, Black made a guest appearance on Community[42] and also guest-starred on Nickelodeon's iCarly in an episode titled, "iStart a Fan War".[43][44] Black has appeared numerous times on the "untelevised TV network" short film festival Channel 101, created by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, starring in the shows Computerman, Timebelt, and Laserfart. He also provided an introduction for the unaired sketch comedy Awesometown, donning a Colonial-era military uniform. In the introduction, he claims to be George Washington and takes credit for the accomplishments of other American presidents such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.[citation needed] His next film, The Big Year, a competitive birdwatching comedy co-starring Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, and JoBeth Williams, was released in October 2011.[45] Black garnered a second Golden Globe Award nomination, this time in the category Best Actor in a Comedy, for his 2011 starring role in Richard Linklater's black comedyBernie. He played as real-life murderer Bernie Tiede, a funeral director in a small East Texas town, who befriends and eventually murders a rich widow, played by Shirley MacLaine. Black's subdued portrayal, authentic East Texas accent, and musical talent – he sings several gospel hymns as well as "Seventy-six Trombones" – had Roger Ebert describing Black's work as "one of the performances of the year."[46] He presented the tribute to Led Zeppelin when the band was named as 2012 recipients of Kennedy Center Honors.[47] In 2016, Black joined the climate change documentary show Years of Living Dangerously as one of its celebrity correspondents.[48] In 2018, Black appeared in the music video for Gorillaz song "Humility".[49]
2015–present
In 2015, Black played a fictional version of real-life author R. L. Stine for Goosebumps, and provided the voices of two of Stine's creations, Slappy the Dummy and The Invisible Boy.[50] He reprised the Stine role in the film's 2018 sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween. He also voiced himself and many other additional characters on the animated YouTube series "Tenacious D in Post-Apocalypto", which he also co-directed and co-wrote, along with his Tenacious D partner Kyle Gass. In 2017 he portrayed a teenage girl inhabiting the body of Professor Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon in the children's action adventure comedy film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. He starred alongside Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan. The film received positive reviews and was a financial success.
Tenacious D helped the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation[62] raise awareness of these diseases and funds for the organization in Los Angeles on December 20, 2001,[63] and in San Diego, California on June 16, 2007. Tenacious D can be seen performing in the 90s-era Pauly Shore film Bio-Dome where the duo is performing its song "The Five Needs" at a "Save the Environment" party. Black was also a guest star on an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show entitled "Ellen the Musical", alongside Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth and teenage singer-actress Olivia Olson. On the show, besides singing, he discussed his then-upcoming film Nacho Libre with the host.
Black did guest vocals and appeared on the Dethklok soundtrack album The Doomstar Requiem.[68] He sings the parts for Dethklok's original band manager as well as a blogger. Black, as a member of Tenacious D, won the award for Best Metal Performance at the 57th Grammy Awards.[69] The song "The Last in Line" won the award, a cover of the song of the same name by Dio that appeared on the tribute album This Is Your Life.
YouTube channel
On December 21, 2018, Black created a YouTube channel called Jablinski Games.[70] Within one week of its launch, it had amassed over 1 million subscribers.[71] The videos published on the channel are typically either candid vlogs involving Black and his two sons, or gaming content.[72] Jack created the channel largely to bond with his son, who serves as videographer and editor of the channel.[73][74] On July 21, 2019, Black took part in a Minecraft stream with popular YouTuber PewDiePie to raise money for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), in the wake of the suicide of Etika in June 2019. After two days of streaming, they raised $30,479 with the stream being broadcast live both on YouTube and on the streaming platform DLive.[75][76] As of June 2023, Jablinski Games has 5.04 million subscribers and 216 million video views.[77]
Production company
In August 2006, Black registered his own production company, Electric Dynamite Productions, Inc. The company's first work produced was the 2009 mockumentary Branson, which was a co-production with BranMo Productions and Perfect Weekend.[78] In 2011, the company would produce two TV-movies, My Life As an Experiment and Shredd.[79] In 2013, the company notably produced TV series Ghost Ghirls[80] for the now-defunct Yahoo! Screen, as well as obtained the rights to adapt the UK mockumentary Wizard's Way into a feature film.[81] The company would also be a producer credit on The D Train (2015) and The Polka King (2017), both of which featured Black in the starring role. The company produced The Aquabats! RadVentures! in 2018, the dark-comedy film Happily in 2021.[79]
At age 14, Black struggled with cocaine use. He said, "I was having a lot of troubles with cocaine... I was hanging out with some pretty rough characters. I was scared to go to school because one of them wanted to kill me. I wanted to get out of there."[99] One of Black's brothers, Howard, died of AIDS in 1991 at age 36.[99] His oldest brother, Neil, is an engineer, scientist, and musician.[100]
Although an atheist,[110][111] Black identifies as nominally Jewish, and fatherhood influenced his decision to raise his children in the Jewish faith.[112]
Black endorsed Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.[113] In 2015, he visited Kampala as part of Comic Relief USA's Red Nose Day.[114] Black was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. On the day of Trump's presidential inauguration, he and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass performed their 2006 protest song "The Government Totally Sucks". Black said to the audience beforehand, "We haven't played it for years, because it just never felt appropriate—but now, we're happy to unleash the beast. The government totally sucks."[115] Before the 2022 election, Black hosted a letter and text writing party to rally VoteRiders volunteers engaged in educating eligible voters about voter ID requirements in their states.[116] Of the 2022 midterms, he said, "[S]o much is on the ballot this cycle. We've got a woman's right to choose. The environment is on the ballot, environmental protections. And not to mention democracy is on the ballot. There's so, there's so many divides in this country right now." Black said he views a potential reelection bid by Trump as a threat that is "always lurking in the background."[117]
^Scott, Tony (September 10, 1993), True Romance, retrieved September 28, 2016
^"Jack Black: On Music, Mayhem And Murder". NPR. Fresh Air. April 23, 2012. The interviewer (Gross) states that High Fidelity was his breakout role, which he (Black) agrees to with an audible 'uh-huh' (back-channel). Occurs at approximately 31:45 on the interview timecode. Retrieved April 24, 2012.
^"School of Rock". Rotten Tomatoes. October 3, 2003. Retrieved April 30, 2012.
^"Jack Black: On Music, Mayhem And Murder". NPR. April 23, 2012. Retrieved April 24, 2012 – via Fresh Air. I don't have any real spirituality in my life – I'm kind of an atheist – but when music can take me to the highest heights, it's almost like a spiritual feeling. It fills that void for me.
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