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Jack Black

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Jack Black

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  • Jack Black is an American actor, comedian, singer and musician, and in 2025 he attached his name to the shortest song ever to reach the Billboard Hot 100. "Steve's Lava Chicken", from A Minecraft Movie, lasts just 34 seconds. It edged out Kid Cudi's "Beautiful Trip", which had held the record at 37 seconds. A chart oddity that small suits a career made of huge, strange swings between rock stages, animated animals and a murder case set in East Texas. How did a boy raised in a household of satellite engineers become one of comedy's most recognizable voices? What kept him working through years of tiny roles before anyone called him a leading man? And what made a comedy rock duo, started with a friend as something close to a joke, last for decades?

  • Thomas Jacob Black was born in Santa Monica, California, on the 28th of August 1969. His parents, Thomas William Black and Judith Love Cohen, both worked as satellite engineers. The family settled in Hermosa Beach.

    His mother's résumé reads like a space-age checklist. She worked on the guidance system for the Minuteman nuclear missile, the guidance system for the Apollo lunar module, and the science ground station for the Hubble Space Telescope. She was also a writer. Through her, Black had three older half-siblings: the scientist Neil Siegel, Howard Siegel and Rachel Siegel.

    A family from Poland and Russia stood behind his mother, who was born Jewish. His father converted to Judaism and has German, English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. The boy attended Hebrew school and had a bar mitzvah. The name Thomas had passed down in the family since their ancestors lived in Ireland, yet his parents called him Jack instead.

    When he was 10, his parents divorced, and his father stopped practicing Judaism. Black moved to Culver City with his father and often visited his mother's home. For high school his parents enrolled him at the Poseidon School, a private school designed for students who struggled in traditional classrooms. He also attended the Crossroads School, where he excelled in drama. Later he enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, but dropped out in his second year to chase a career in entertainment.

    Another Crossroads student, Tanya Haden, would reappear in his life many years later.

  • In 1982, at age 13, Black landed his first acting job in a television commercial for the video game Pitfall!. In 1987 he joined the Actors' Gang, a theater troupe founded by UCLA students including Tim Robbins. There he appeared in a variety of stage productions.

    His adult career began with small parts on prime time television, among them Life Goes On, Northern Exposure, Picket Fences, The Golden Palace and The X-Files. In 1995 and 1996 he held recurring roles on Mr. Show, an HBO sketch comedy series.

    One early project never aired at all. Heat Vision and Jack was a pilot directed by Ben Stiller, with Black as an ex-astronaut chased by the actor Ron Silver. His sidekick was a friend who had merged with a motorcycle, voiced by Owen Wilson.

    Robbins gave him his first film break by casting him in Bob Roberts in 1992. Small film roles followed: Airborne and Demolition Man in 1993, then Waterworld and Dead Man Walking in 1995. In 1996 came The Cable Guy, The Fan, Mars Attacks! and Crossworlds, followed by The Jackal in 1997 and Enemy of the State in 1998. He also played a security guard in True Romance, but that scene was cut.

    The odd jobs never stopped. In 2004 he guest-starred in the first episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. In 2009 he turned up in a fake movie inside the post-Super Bowl episode of The Office, alongside Cloris Leachman and Jessica Alba. In 2010 he appeared on Community and on Nickelodeon's iCarly, in an episode called "iStart a Fan War".

    Channel 101, a self-described untelevised TV network and short film festival created by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, hosted him in the shows Computerman, Timebelt and Laserfart. For the unaired sketch comedy Awesometown he recorded an introduction in a Colonial-era military uniform. In it he claims to be George Washington and takes credit for the achievements of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

  • High Fidelity arrived in 2000, with Black as a wild employee at a record store run by John Cusack. Black considers it his breakout. Near the end of the film he sings a cover of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On".

    Leading roles came quickly. He starred in Saving Silverman and Shallow Hal in 2001 and Orange County in 2002. In October 2001 he also took part in a celebrity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, alongside Denis Leary, Jimmy Kimmel and others.

    School of Rock, released in 2003, established him as a leading man. It earned him strong reviews and a Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a musical or comedy. The soundtrack came out on the 30th of September 2003 and later received a Gold certification from the BPI.

    In 2005 Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong gave him one of his few dramatic parts, the obsessed filmmaker Carl Denham. He based the performance on Orson Welles.

    The year 2006 was crowded. He played the romantic interest of Kate Winslet in Nancy Meyers's The Holiday, and he both starred in and produced the comedy Nacho Libre. He also played King Herod in a one-night benefit concert of Jesus Christ Superstar, by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.

    In 2007 he took a supporting role in Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding, with Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh. That same year he made a cameo as Paul McCartney in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. In 2008 he starred opposite Mos Def in Be Kind Rewind and joined Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. in the war satire Tropic Thunder.

    Harold Ramis directed him in the adventure comedy Year One in 2009, alongside Michael Cera. Gulliver's Travels followed in 2010, and it landed him in the Golden Raspberry worst actor category for 2011.

  • The 6th of June 2008 was opening day for Kung Fu Panda, in which Black voiced the title role, the panda Po. He returned for Kung Fu Panda 2, 3 and 4. Po is his favorite role, and he praises the tutoring he received from co-star Dustin Hoffman, a two-time Academy Award winner. From 2022 to 2023 he voiced Po again in the Netflix series Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, which was recognized at the 2023 Children's and Family Emmy Awards for outstanding voice performance.

    Animation had already been part of his work. He voiced Zeke in Ice Age in 2002 and Lenny in Shark Tale in 2004. On the 18th of November 2007 he played Milo, the friendly owner of a rival comic book store, in the Simpsons episode "Husbands and Knives".

    In April 2009 he appeared in an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba!, singing children's songs including "It's Not Fun to Get Lost", "Friends" and "The Goodbye Song". Online, he voiced Darth Vader in Bad Lip Reading's parodies of the original Star Wars trilogy on YouTube.

    Video games gave him a metal-flavored role. He voiced the main character, the roadie Eddie Riggs, in the heavy metal action-adventure game Brütal Legend, and won the Best Voice award at the Spike Video Game Awards in 2009. On the 14th of December 2008 he had hosted that same awards show. He has also hosted the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Acceptable.TV. In 2024 he voiced Claptrap in Borderlands.

    In April 2023 he voiced Bowser in Illumination's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, based on the Nintendo games. It ranked among the highest-grossing films of 2023. Its song "Peaches", performed by Black, earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best original song. The track peaked at number 56 on the US chart, reached number 13 in New Zealand and went platinum in the United States.

  • Richard Linklater's black comedy Bernie, from 2011, gave Black a real-life killer to play. Bernie Tiede was a funeral director in a small East Texas town who befriended a rich widow, played by Shirley MacLaine, and eventually murdered her. Black's subdued performance, authentic East Texas accent and singing of gospel hymns and "Seventy-six Trombones" impressed critics. Roger Ebert called it "one of the performances of the year." Black earned a second Golden Globe nomination, and he was also named in the Critics' Choice and Independent Spirit best actor categories.

    Before Bernie, in October 2011, came The Big Year, a competitive birdwatching comedy with Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and JoBeth Williams. In 2012 Black presented the tribute to Led Zeppelin when the band received Kennedy Center Honors.

    After a stretch of career fluctuations, the comeback built on family adventures. In 2015 he played a fictional version of the author R. L. Stine in Goosebumps and also voiced two of Stine's creations, Slappy the Dummy and The Invisible Boy. He returned as Stine in the 2018 sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween.

    In 2017 he played a teenage girl inhabiting the body of Professor Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, with Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan. The film drew positive reviews and was a financial success. Jumanji: The Next Level followed in 2019 and became one of that year's highest-grossing films.

    He also took on quieter work. In Gus Van Sant's Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, from 2018, he played a supporting dramatic part opposite Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara and Jonah Hill. He starred in The House with a Clock in Its Walls with Cate Blanchett and Renée Elise Goldsberry. In 2018 he also appeared in the music video for the Gorillaz song "Humility". On the 18th of September 2018 he was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

    In 2022 he lent his voice to Linklater's animated Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood. That year he also played the disc jockey Wolfman Jack in the Roku parody film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. In 2025 he appeared in A Minecraft Movie. On television in 2023 he played Captain Bombardier in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian and Joseph Stalin in Mel Brooks's Hulu comedy series History of the World, Part II.

  • In 1994 Black formed Tenacious D with his long-time friend Kyle Gass. The comedy rock duo has Black as lead singer and rhythm guitarist. Their albums include a self-titled debut in 2001, The Pick of Destiny in 2006, Rize of the Fenix in 2012 and Post-Apocalypto in 2018.

    Their songs found a second life in video games. "The Metal" appeared in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and in Brütal Legend. "Master Exploder" turned up in Guitar Hero Van Halen, Rock Band 2 and Brütal Legend, and "Tribute" was used too. "Rock Your Socks" played in Rock Band Unplugged.

    The 2006 comedy film Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, which Black wrote and produced, was directed by Liam Lynch. It featured the recurring characters Lee the super-fan and the Sasquatch. Meat Loaf played Black's father. Tim Robbins made a cameo, Dave Grohl played Satan, and Ben Stiller appeared as a Guitar Center worker and also took part in the video for "Tribute".

    At the 57th Grammy Awards, the band won Best Metal Performance for "The Last in Line". It is a cover of a Dio song that appeared on the tribute album This Is Your Life. In October 2010 they played BlizzCon, a convention hosted by Blizzard Entertainment. Black and Gass also co-wrote and co-directed the animated YouTube series "Tenacious D in Post-Apocalypto", in which Black voiced himself and many other characters.

    Black's guest spots stretch across rock. In 2000 he and Gass sang backing vocals on "Fourteen" by the punk band The Vandals. He sang the hidden track "I Am The Warlock" on Dave Grohl's Probot album and a song on Lynch's Fake Songs. He provided rhythmic stomps and claps on "Burn the Witch" by Queens of the Stone Age, and vocals on two tracks of the 2006 Eagles of Death Metal album Death by Sexy. He sang on The Lonely Island's "Sax Man" and recorded a duet, "Like a Rose", on Meat Loaf's album Hang Cool Teddy Bear. He voiced two characters on the Dethklok soundtrack album The Doomstar Requiem, and in 2012 joined other celebrities on "Book People Unite", a song sponsored by the Library of Congress and RIF.

    His music videos include Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly", "Low" and "The One", plus Beck's "Sexx Laws", Weezer's "Photograph", Sum 41's "Things I Want", Dio's "Push", "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Tacky" and Die Antwoord's "Ugly Boy".

    On the 14th of July 2024, Tenacious D played the ICC Sydney Theater and celebrated Gass's birthday with a cake. Gass made a remark about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump the day before. Two days later Black wrote that he was "blindsided" and did not condone hate speech or political violence "in any form". Gass apologized, calling his comment "highly inappropriate, dangerous and a terrible mistake". The band canceled the rest of its world tour, and Black said their "creative plans are on hold".

  • In August 2006 Black registered his own production company, Electric Dynamite Productions, Inc. Its first project was the 2009 mockumentary Branson. In 2011 it produced two TV movies, My Life As an Experiment and Shredd. In 2013 it produced the series Ghost Ghirls for the now-defunct Yahoo! Screen, and it obtained the rights to adapt the UK mockumentary Wizard's Way into a feature film. It also holds producer credits on The D Train in 2015 and The Polka King in 2017, both starring Black, and on The Aquabats! RadVentures! in 2018 and the dark comedy Happily in 2021.

    At age 14, he has said, he struggled with cocaine use. "I was scared to go to school because one of them wanted to kill me," he recalled of the rough characters he hung out with. His brother Howard died of AIDS in 1989, at age 31.

    He dated the actress Laura Kightlinger from 1996 to 2005. In January 2006 he became engaged to Tanya Haden, a daughter of the jazz bassist Charlie Haden. They met again at a friend's birthday party 15 years after graduating from Crossroads. They married on the 14th of March 2006 in Big Sur, California, and their sons were born in 2006 and 2008. Black is an atheist who identifies as nominally Jewish, and fatherhood influenced his decision to raise his children in the Jewish faith.

    His causes have ranged widely. Tenacious D raised awareness and funds for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation in Los Angeles on the 20th of December 2001 and in San Diego on the 16th of June 2007. In 2012 he endorsed Barack Obama's re-election, and in 2015 he visited Kampala for Comic Relief USA's Red Nose Day. In 2016 he joined the climate documentary show Years of Living Dangerously as a celebrity correspondent.

    Black is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. On the day of Trump's 2017 inauguration, he and Gass performed their 2006 protest song "The Government Totally Sucks". Beforehand he told the audience, "We haven't played it for years, because it just never felt appropriate." He added that now they were "happy to unleash the beast." Before the 2022 election he hosted a letter and text writing party for VoteRiders volunteers, who educate eligible voters about voter ID rules. In 2023 he signed the open letter "No Hostage Left Behind", which backed Israel in the Gaza War and urged President Joe Biden to secure the release of hostages.

    On the 21st of December 2018 Black launched a YouTube channel called Jablinski Games. Within a week it had more than 1 million subscribers. Its videos are mostly candid vlogs with Black and his two sons, or gaming. He made the channel largely to bond with his son, who serves as its videographer and editor.

    On the 21st of July 2019 he joined the YouTuber PewDiePie for a Minecraft stream raising money for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, after the death of Etika in June 2019. Two days of streaming on YouTube and DLive brought in $30,479. By June 2025 the channel had 5.14 million subscribers and 239 million video views.

    It then went quiet. The last upload came in May 2023, the music video for Tenacious D's "Video Games". After about three years, on the 14th of May 2026, a new video appeared titled "WE'RE BACK BABY!!!!". It was later retitled "Racing Kevin Hart for PINK SLIPS!!!!".

Updated

Common questions

Who is Jack Black?

Jack Black is an American actor, comedian, singer and musician, born Thomas Jacob Black in Santa Monica, California, on the 28th of August 1969. He is known for School of Rock, the Kung Fu Panda films and the band Tenacious D.

What was Jack Black's breakout movie role?

Jack Black considers his 2000 role as a wild record store employee in High Fidelity his breakout. He then became a leading man with School of Rock in 2003, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination.

Who does Jack Black voice in Kung Fu Panda?

Jack Black voices the panda Po, starting with Kung Fu Panda, which opened on the 6th of June 2008. He also voiced Po in the sequels and in the Netflix series Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight.

When did Jack Black form Tenacious D?

Jack Black formed Tenacious D with his long-time friend Kyle Gass in 1994. Black is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, and the duo won a Grammy for Best Metal Performance for "The Last in Line".

What is Jack Black's YouTube channel?

Jack Black's YouTube channel is called Jablinski Games, launched on the 21st of December 2018. It passed 1 million subscribers within a week and had 5.14 million subscribers by June 2025.

Which video game and animated film characters has Jack Black voiced?

Jack Black voiced Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Eddie Riggs in Brütal Legend and Claptrap in Borderlands. He also voiced Zeke in Ice Age and Lenny in Shark Tale.

All sources

142 references cited across the entry

  1. 4NewsJack Black Rocks 'School'CBS News — October 3, 2003
  2. 5Jack Black and the Price of FameKevin Nealon — September 20, 2018
  3. 6Star SearchNASM — July 2024
  4. 9In Memory of Judith Love Cohen: Mother, Wife, Friend, Author, EngineerNeil Siegel — USC Viterbi School of Engineering — July 26, 2016
  5. 10Kyle Gass and Jack Black Discuss "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny"Rebecca Murray — About.com — November 15, 2006
  6. 13NewsJack Black: My family valuesElaine Lipworth — May 13, 2011
  7. 15Jack Black Talks About Being JewishH3 Podcast — December 11, 2018
  8. 16NewsJumpin' Jack BlackNovember 3, 2003
  9. 17Notable alumni actorsUCLA School of Theater, Film and television
  10. 18NewsThrills & Chills with Jack BlackDotson Radar — October 8, 2015
  11. 20Biography: Jack Black
  12. 22Heat Vision and JackBen Stiller — January 1, 2000
  13. 23True RomanceTony Scott — September 10, 1993
  14. 24Jack Black: On Music, Mayhem And MurderFresh Air — April 23, 2012
  15. 25School of RockRotten Tomatoes — October 3, 2003
  16. 35Kung Fu Panda Blu-ray Trivia Track, 2011
  17. 40Jack Black in Star Wars lip reading parodyMolly Mulshine — December 17, 2015
  18. 45Bernie movie review film summary (2012)Roger Ebert — May 16, 2012
  19. 47Jack BlackJuly 17, 2006
  20. 61Rock Band Unplugged tracklist and DLC unveiledEddie Makuch — May 18, 2009
  21. 63NewsAds Urge 'Book People' to Help Children ReadStuart Elliott — April 16, 2012
  22. 64NewsCrowd divided over 'bad joke' at Sydney gig hours after Trump shootingBrianne Tolj — Yahoo! News — July 15, 2024
  23. 66MagazineTenacious D's Kyle Gass Deletes Trump Apology Instagram PostJessica Lynch — July 19, 2024
  24. 67Jack Black axes tour over bandmate's Trump commentBonnie McLaren — BBC News — July 16, 2024
  25. 72Best Metal PerformanceJanuary 20, 2015
  26. 74NewsSpringsteen, Foo Fighters, Morello more set for Power to the PeopleChris Jordan — USA Today — May 28, 2026
  27. 75UMP
  28. 76MagazineCharity EventNovember 30, 2001
  29. 78Stars shine again in 2012 campaignsAnna Tinsley — September 30, 2012
  30. 80The Government Totally SucksJack Black — August 31, 2017
  31. 84BransonJune 18, 2009
  32. 87Jack Black to remake MMO mockumentary 'Wizard's Way'Alexa Ray Corriea — January 15, 2014
  33. 90NewsJack Black Launches a New YouTube Channel For Gaming, JablinskiTerri Schwartz — IGN — December 27, 2018
  34. 91NewsJack Black Launched a Video Gaming YouTube Channel and It's Going ViralMorgan Greenwald — Yahoo! Finance — January 9, 2019
  35. 97Jack Black: Hey dude, party's overGill Pringle — July 13, 2006
  36. 100Jack Black Elopes!Gina Serpe — March 14, 2006
  37. 101NewsTanya Haden – Jack Black's WifeLauren Weigle — February 22, 2015
  38. 103NewsIt's a Boy for Jack Black, WifeStephen M. Silverman — June 13, 2006
  39. 104Report: Jack Black Welcomes SonHenry Seltzer — June 1, 2008
  40. 105NewsJack Black: 'I was getting tired of the frat-guy comedies'Hadley Freeman — April 18, 2013
  41. 109School of Rock
  42. 115NZ Hot Singles ChartRecorded Music NZ — April 17, 2023
  43. 116Jack Black Chart HistoryOfficial Charts Company
  44. 118Gold & Platinum Search "Jack Black"Recording Industry Association of America
  45. 119Walk of Fame Stars-Jack BlackHollywood Chamber of Commerce
  46. 120Netflix's 'Nimona' Leads Annie Awards 2024 NominationsTerry Flores — January 11, 2024
  47. 125Jack BlackHollywood Foreign Press Association
  48. 130'King's' the thing at MTV Movie AwardsVariety Staff — June 6, 2004
  49. 1312007 MTV Movie Award Nominations Are AnnouncedSteve Weintraub — April 30, 2007
  50. 143Satellites pix pickedRyan Maldonado — December 17, 2003
  51. 144IPA Reveals Nominations for the 28th Satellite™ AwardsInternational Press Academy — December 18, 2023

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