IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Jack Black hits wrestling ring for ‘Nacho Libre’

Comic endures battle wounds, embarrassment in latest movie
/ Source: The Associated Press

Jack Black puts in serious work to make himself outrageously funny.For “Nacho Libre,” in which he plays a cook in a Mexican orphanage who moonlights as a masked wrestler, Black took Spanish lessons, carefully honed his accent, learned zany but dangerous moves and overcame the fear that he could get squashed in the ring.“I was scared that I would get injured, because even though it’s a movie, you still have to get really physical, pretending to wrestle 500-pound dudes,” Black told The Associated Press.And injured he was.Black proudly shows off the battle wound he sustained over his right eye.“I was diving out of the ring to tackle my opponent and hit my head on a metal chair and got some stitches right above the eye here,” Black said, pointing to the noticeable gash. “Scarred for life. For the good of the film.”In the footsteps of such comic actors as John Belushi, John Candy and Chris Farley, Black, 36, is the latest Hollywood funny man who has managed to achieve leading-man status with his tubby, character-actor’s frame.“I think he was just always destined for it,” said “Nacho Libre” director Jared Hess. “To me, the roles that he’s played, whether he was like a smaller character in a film, he was always somebody that stuck out, that I was left wanting to see more of. ... Every time I’ve gone to a film that he’s starred in, I’ve always known I’m going to have a good time.”Black’s breakout role as the world’s snobbiest record store clerk in 2000’s “High Fidelity” vaulted him to top roles in the comedies “Shallow Hal,” “Orange County” and “School of Rock.” Last year, Black had his biggest dramatic turn as the filmmaker and entrepreneur who brings the giant ape to Manhattan in “King Kong.”

“Nacho Libre” came about as Black and producing partner Mike White — screenwriter of “Orange County” and “School of Rock” — were looking to collaborate with “Napoleon Dynamite” director Hess.A lifelong fan of Mexico’s flashy lucha libre wrestling, Hess suggested a comedy set in that world. Hess, wife Jerusha Hess and White wrote the script, with Black as Nacho, an outcast who cooks disgusting meals at a Mexican orphanage and takes up wrestling to buy better food for the kids.Embracing humilityBlack had reservations about baring his pudgy torso in his gaudy luchador costume — a get-up that includes sky-blue tights, a red cape and a menacing mask.“When I first put on the costume and I was in my trailer, I thought, oh, God, there’s like 400 people out there in the audience getting ready to watch us film this fight. I was just feeling so ridiculous and just going, ‘Ugh,”’ Black said.“But then I sort of meditated a little bit and said, ‘Wait a second. You’re embarrassed, and when people are embarrassed, when people are humiliated, that’s funny. So it’s good. Be humiliated. ... Embrace it.’ And then I opened the trailer door and I stepped out slowly, puffed up my chest, looked around, and I saw that the people respected Nacho,” Black said, his voice trailing into his on-screen Mexican accent.

After “Nacho Libre,” Black has two more films due out at the end of this year. He co-stars with Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Kate Winslet in director Nancy Meyers’ romantic comedy “The Holiday.” Black stars with musical partner Kyle Gass in “Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny,” a not-quite-true-to-life account of how their comic folk-rock duo came to be.Both alumni of Tim Robbins’ theater company the Actors Gang in Los Angeles, Black and Gass started Tenacious D in 1994, earning a loyal following, with Black’s powerful vocals stoking the group’s clever parodies of rock star self-importance. (Along with a CD, the duo has released a DVD mischievously called “Tenacious D: The Complete Master Works.”)Robbins — who gave Black his first movie role in “Bob Roberts” and cast him in his other directing efforts, “Dead Man Walking” and “Cradle Will Rock” — appears as a “mysterious stranger” in the “Tenacious D” film.“This is the fictional tale of how Tenacious D formed,” Black said. “There’s a lot of stuff in there we beefed up obviously just to be more entertaining, because if we really just told the story of how me and Kyle got together in the Actors Gang, it wouldn’t be as crazy a movie as we need it to be.“It’s basically dumber versions and more extreme, childishly emotional versions of us.”Other upcoming projects for Black include the lead voice role for the animated comedy “Kung Fu Panda” and an untitled domestic comic drama with Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, from filmmaker Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”).Renaissance manFrom an early age, Black was dabbling in the arts — drawing, acting and creating animated stories. But music came first.He recalls singing and dancing to records at age 6 or 7, his tastes ranging widely over the years: the sugary pop of ABBA, the harmonies of Simon and Garfunkel, the heavy metal of Black Sabbath, the progressive rock of Styx, the vocalizations of Bobby McFerrin.Black has showcased his musical talent with a show-stopping rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” in “High Fidelity” and as a substitute teacher who trains his grade schoolers in the rock life for a battle-of-the-bands contest in “School of Rock.”He even married into music. In March, Black wed musician Tanya Haden, daughter of jazz bassist Charlie Haden. (The couple’s first child, a son, was born this month.)

Unlike actors who dream of being rock stars, Black said that moonlighting in Tenacious D always has been just for fun, even after his Hollywood stardom brought more fame to the band.“I had just as much fun doing it before I had any notoriety,” Black said. “Kyle and I would go to play a Tenacious D show to like 30 people in a coffee shop. It was tremendous fun, and it wasn’t about being a star, obviously. It was about doing the thing that I loved doing. As soon as it became something you wouldn’t do if you weren’t getting paid for it, then it loses all of its fun.”