Biography

Jack Black

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Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black was born on August 28, 1969 in Santa Monica, California and raised in Hermosa Beach, California to Judith Love Cohen & Thomas William Black, both satellite engineers. He is of Russian Jewish & British-German ancestry. Black attended the University of California at Los Angeles. While at UCLA, he was a member of Tim Robbins' acting troupe & it was through this collaboration that led to his 1992 film debut in Bob Roberts (1992). Although he was just a background voice in his first film, Jack's appearances in such television shows as The X-Files (1993), his breakthrough performance in High Fidelity (2000) & his rock-comedy band, Tenacious D have created an ever-growing cult following.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

Starts speaking in a slow, quiet tempo and begins to sing in a faster louder cadence.
Often plays slackers or sloppy infantiles
Expressive eyes/eyebrows
Stocky frame
Deep husky voice.

His parents, Judith Love Cohen and Thomas William Black, who were aerospace engineers, divorced when Black was 10. His mother, Judith Love Cohen, helped create the abort-guidance system that rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts. Se also worked on the Hubble space telescope.
One half of the rock band Tenacious D alongside friend and collaborator Kyle Gass.
Often competes for the same roles with Philip Seymour Hoffman. On the Blu-ray audio commentary for School of Rock (2003), he jokingly calls Hoffman "my nemesis". He was later considered for the role of Freddy Lounds in Red Dragon (2002), which went to Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Is a member of, what the media refers to as the Frat Pack along with Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Steve Carell and Luke Wilson. The Frat Pack name is a reference to the film Old School (2003), which features Vaughn, Ferrell and Wilson because of the wide number of films featuring the seven actors. Black's "Frat Pack" films include The Cable Guy (1996), Envy (2004) and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004).
Despite poking fun at the genre, he is actually a very knowledgeable fan of hard rock/heavy metal music from the 1970s and 1980s. He even appears as part of Tenacious D in Ronnie James Dio's music video for the song "Push".

[on filming the love scene in Shallow Hal (2001)] It was just strictly professional. It was like a doctor or a carpenter plying his trade. I received no pleasure whatsoever... I requested 32 takes for the perfection of the craft.
Never for a second did I think of myself as the sexiest guy in the world. When I was a kid, I thought I was the strongest man in the world. Then the fastest runner and then the smartest person in the world. One by one, my delusions got shut down. Now I just see myself as the lamest guy in the world.
[on co-starring with Gwyneth Paltrow for the first time in Shallow Hal (2001)] You know, I WAS a little afraid that she would fall head-over-heels in love with me, like she did [when co-starring] with Brad Pitt in Seven (1995).
I'd just like to be in films that I would like to see. I think of myself as an entertainment arsenal. Like I have my acting bazooka and my music machete. And you don't know what I'm going to come at you with.
I was a little worried about working with kids. I wanted to make sure we didn't approach it tip-toeing around the stuff that would normally be funny, or make it gentle, rock-a-bye-baby bullshit.