Exclusive photos from our shoot with music from Black's band, Tenacious D.

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Interview: Comedian Jack Black

"There has to be some kind of meaning behind everything I do, even if it's just to have fun and make people laugh"

By David Hochman

"To describe Jack's comedic mojo, I think of words like 'Tyrannosaurus Rexian.' " -- Robert Downey Jr.

Jack Black understands the joys -- and pitfalls -- of the funny-guy halo effect. It works like this: You spend a career honing your skills as a comedian, only to discover one day that the jokes and the shtick no longer matter.

"When you get to a certain level doing comedy, people just start laughing even when you're not being funny," says Black, slumped back on a couch waiting for a photo shoot to begin in Los Angeles. With his tousled hair and a five-day shadow, Black, dressed in a snug red T-shirt, jeans and purple sneakers, hardly looks ready for his close-up. "I'll be walking down the street, and someone will say, 'Yo! Here comes Jack Black! You're the funniest dude on the puh-lanet, man!' And I'll say, 'Oh, thanks.' And they'll fall down laughing, like I said something hilarious. 'Hey, honey! Look what Jack Black's doing! He's just standing there not making any noise! Oooh-weee! You are so freakin' fun-nay!' "

And it's all Black's doing, of course. With his unique talent for hyperactive outbursts and a rock star's taste for volume, Black, 38, comes on stronger than that masked luchador he played in the 2006 movie "Nacho Libre."

Whether he's being cuddly and sincere, like he was in this summer's animated mega-hit, "Kung Fu Panda," or a raging, drug-snorting Hollywood lunatic, like the guy he plays in his latest comedy, "Tropic Thunder," opening Aug. 13, Black wields enthusiasm that's so relentless, so shamelessly unhinged, just looking at him makes you crack up.

"'Explosive' is not the right word to describe Jack's comedic mojo," says his friend and "Tropic Thunder" co-star Robert Downey Jr. "When I think of Jack's talent, I think of words like 'gigantorous,' 'magno-rific,' 'Tyrannosaurus Rexian.' You have to coin new terms to describe how potent a force he is."

The downside, of course, is the more that larger-than-life persona conquers the world, the less room there is for the real Jack Black. In fact, Black winces (and then flashes one of his trademark bug-eyed stares) when asked how he turns off at the end of each day. "Um, sleep -- occasionally," he says, and what's surprising is how mellow he sounds compared with the loudmouths he often plays. "There's a new baby in the house, and sometimes in the middle of the night you've got to pull out your best material to make sure the little man goes from tears to smiles."

Black and his wife, Tanya Haden, have been married since 2006 and now have two sons, Sammy, 2, and Tommy, who was born May 23. The actor has known Haden, the daughter of jazz legend Charlie Haden and an accomplished musician herself, since they attended high school together in Los Angeles. But it wasn't until they met again 15 years later at a friend's party that they fell in love. They now live in a big house behind a high wall in Beverly Hills. And as Black opens up, you understand why.

"When you're in the celebrity bubble, you don't want somebody looking up at you from the sidewalk when you're going into the shower," he says. "So we have a gate, like Elvis." The privacy gives him a chance to be a normal husband and dad. He and Haden make decisions about Black's scripts together, and Black brings the family along on movie shoots. He's also an involved father, right down to changing even "the stankiest" diapers, he says, and showing off pictures.

"I used to think it was boring when people bragged about their kids," he says. "So what? The kid is banging on the table. It doesn't make him a musical genius! Now I get it -- though I'm still bored when other people do it." His big concern as a dad is that his fame doesn't make his sons feel overshadowed later in life. "I want them to be their own people, not Jack Black's kids."

That might not be so easy. Since his breakout performance as an obsessive record-store clerk in 2000's "High Fidelity," Black has gone from being an underground comedy/music act (as half of faux arena-rock troupe Tenacious D) to this generation's answer to radioactive superstar funnymen like John Belushi. In high-octane comedies such as "School of Rock" and now "Tropic Thunder," Black comes off as a self-assured misfit too adorably clueless to know he's not quite the big kahuna he imagines he is. "Jack Black is the king of misplaced self-confidence," says film critic Bob Strauss of the "Los Angeles Daily News." "You completely buy that he's, say, a rock star -- even if his character is jamming with a bunch of 9-year-olds."

"Tropic Thunder" casts Black as a buffoonish actor filming a Vietnam-War epic in a real war zone. Despite big laughs and physical comedy, the movie is a biting indictment of Hollywood egotism. As Black says, "It's about how messed up you get when you think you're the most important person in the world."

But by all accounts, Black himself is less about self-aggrandizement than self-flagellation. "Jack has always been very concerned about getting things right when it comes to his work -- very concerned," says Ben Stiller, who directed and co-stars in "Tropic Thunder." "He cares what people think and can be a perfectionist, but that makes him a better actor and a funnier entertainer." At the same time, he adds, Black can make a fool of himself like nobody else, all for the good of a project. "For the DVD [of "Tropic Thunder"], I'm including an 8-minute take where Jack goes on an improvising rampage," Stiller says. "He's screaming and cursing while he's tied to a tree, and he's wearing nothing but underwear. Very few actors could let it all hang out the way he does in that scene, but what's amazing is Jack clearly has inhibitions in life. I know he does. But he somehow finds a way to let go of them where the work is involved. I think that's why he's so successful."

It's not that Black doesn't think about his body, which is best described as apple-shaped. Although he likes to joke that he has "more cushion for the pushin'," Black admits he thinks about his health more now that he has children. "It would be nice to be thinner," he says. "I could jump higher and be way more physical with my kids. But I slip sometimes. Like, I had a hamburger on the way over here this morning. But I'd like to live till the kids are 30 at least. If that means I've gotta go for the small combo at Carl's Jr., so be it."

Maybe he's masking deeper pain with jokes like that, but comedy has always been Black's security blanket. Growing up in Hermosa Beach and Culver City, Calif., he was literally raised by rocket scientists. His parents, Judith and Thomas, who divorced when Jack was 10, were both satellite engineers (his mom worked on the Hubble Space Telescope). But humor was as important as smarts.

Black lights up when he talks about his father's love of the absurd. "If I was sitting on the couch and Dad wanted to sit next to me, he'd say, 'Scoot-a-da-pover, rover dover,' which was just weird enough to be hilarious."

That sums up his own brand of comedy, too. At a third-grade talent show, Black and a friend sang a parody of the song "My Sharona" called "Ayatollah," complete with head scarves and sunglasses, and the crowd went wild. "I wasn't a great student, but I got attention from doing stuff like that," he says. In high school, he was a wannabe "badass" who experimented with LSD and cocaine, he has confessed. He was about to fail an English class when his teacher made him a deal. "He told me if I could act out a scene from Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love," he'd pass me. I put my heart and soul into it, and it was the best acting I ever did, mostly because I wanted to get with the chick I did the scene with."

Black got the grade (although not the girl) and went on to join the Actors' Gang, a Culver City, Calif., theater troupe co-founded by actor Tim Robbins. That connection landed him a part in Robbins' 1992 political satire "Bob Roberts," and, more important perhaps, led him to Kyle Gass, who became Black's partner in Tenacious D. The inventive act claimed to be "the greatest rock band in the world" and soon drew lines at L.A. comedy clubs. A 2006 Tenacious D film, "The Pick of Destiny," tanked, but a new album and DVD, along with a behind-the-scenes documentary, are in the works.

"Jack's basically the same guy now as he was when we started Tenacious D," Gass says. "He has moved up the pecking order, and he's a helluva lot richer, but he still has that kid-thing inside him that wants to rock. It's just clouded now because he has more responsibility."

Some critics even wonder if Black has been a bit too responsible lately. "He needs to be careful to avoid the curse of the family hit," film critic Strauss says. "Even though he started out doing daring, cynical adult material, the success of movies like "School of Rock" and "Kung Fu Panda" took some edge off his comedy. It would be a shame to see Jack Black get caught doing Christmas movies and playing with puppies."

But Black's pals are quick to defend him. "I honestly think we've only seen the beginning of what Jack can do," Downey says.

Ask Black what he'd still like to accomplish, and, of course, he comes out with a joke. "You mean my 'bucket list'? I'd like to remake 'Blade Runner,'" he says. But then he really thinks about the question and gets serious in a way that makes you think there is room for the "real" Jack Black after all.

"Whatever I do, I want to make sure my kids can be proud of me. If they ask me one day, 'Why did you do that?' and I can't answer the question without saying 'for the cash,' then something's wrong. There has to be some kind of meaning behind everything I do, even if it's just to have fun and make people laugh."

No need to worry about that. At this point, people will laugh no matter what he does.

Cover photograph by Robert Sebree for USA WEEKEND
Grooming by Jenn Streicher for SoloArtists.com/Kiehl's; Styling by Robyn Goldberg/Artists by Timothy Priano
Clothing on cover: jeans by Juicy Couture; shoes by Vans.