Good morning guys, hope everyone’s doing ok. It has been a hell of a week, to start with we ended up having two power cuts in one day caused by storm Lillian. Luckily because my mum and I are classed as priority due to our disabilities, it was only a few hours each time, so it wasn’t too bad. Another thing that happened was both my mum and I had a hospital appointment on the same day with hers being first thing in the morning and mine being in the evening, whilst my mums was quite quick (she had an X-ray), mine took a little longer (I had an MRI), the nurse and radiographers doing my scan were so lovely and accommodating; the nurse got me an eye mask due to my light sensitivity and got me two blankets to keep me warm as the room I was in was quite cold, they were also very careful regarding my ribs and made sure I was comfortable and safe even after the scan was over with as I was very dizzy and unwell, I can’t praise their kindness enough especially after having a major panic attack earlier that day due to one horrible man invading my personal space whilst my family and I were shopping and nearly ending up on top of me as we were trying to leave the aisle in our local supermarket, then trying to start a fight with my dad who was trying to defend me, but enough about that lets move on to today’s post..

Thomas Jacob Black, better known as Jack Black, or perhaps Jables, Jablinski, or simply J.B., is an American actor and musician known for his iconic film personality. Black’s wacky brand of humor has made him an onscreen staple for the past twenty years, and audiences have come to expect a particular quirkiness in films in which he stars. Jack’s journey in Hollywood began with small roles, but he quickly made a name for himself. He stands out for his dynamic performances in both comedy and drama. His ability to connect with people through his art has made him a beloved star across the globe. Black has proven time and time again that he can effortlessly captivate audiences with his impeccable comic timing and undeniable charm and has solidified his place in Hollywood as one of the industry’s most beloved and respected individuals.

Jack Black

Biography:

Thomas Jacob Black, professionally known as Jack Black, was born on August 28, 1969, in Hermosa Beach, California. He was raised in the Jewish faith by his parents Thomas William Black and Judith Love Cohen, who were both engineers. 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. He has three older half-siblings through his mother: scientist Neil Siegel, Howard Siegel, and Rachel Siegel. His mother was born Jewish, while his father converted to Judaism. Black’s parents divorced when he was 10, and his father then stopped practicing Judaism. Black moved to Culver City with his father and frequently visited his mother’s home. 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. He also attended the Crossroads School, where he excelled in drama. Black attended U.C.L.A. but later dropped out to pursue an acting career.

In 1982, Black’s first acting job was in a television commercial at age 13 for the video game Pitfall!. In 1987, Black joined the Actors’ Gang, a theater troupe founded by UCLA students including Tim Robbins, and appeared in a variety of stage productions. Black started as an actor appearing in small roles in television shows such as “Life Goes On,” “Northern Exposure,” “Picket Fences,” and “The X-Files.” He also appeared in the movies “Waterworld” (1995), “The Cable Guy” (1996), “Mars Attacks!” (1996), “Enemy of the State” (1998), and “Cradle Will Rock” (1999). It was his role in “Jesus’ Son” and H.B.O.’s “Mr. Show” that earned him recognition as a comic. Black would later land his breakthrough role in “High Fidelity” (2000). Riding on the momentum of his success, Black then starred alongside Gwyneth Paltrow in the romantic comedy “Shallow Hal” (2001). He also starred in another comedy titled “Orange County” (2002).

One of his most iconic roles was that of a rebellious music teacher in “School of Rock” (2003). He also starred in the remake of “King Kong” (2005). He played a monk-turned-wrestler in “Nacho Libre” (2006). Black also lent his voice as Po in the animated movie “Kung Fu Panda” (2008). It went on to become one of his most successful movies, generating a revenue of $630 million; it was followed by two sequels. His other notable roles include those in “Tropic Thunder” (2008), “Gulliver’s Travels” (2010), and “Goosebumps” (2015). He also starred in “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” (2017) and its sequel “Jumanji: The Next Level” (2019) as well as the children’s fantasy film “The House with a Clock in Its Walls” (2019). In 2022 he reprised the role of Po in the Netflix animated series Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight. The next year Black voiced Bowser in the Illumination’s animated feature film “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” based on the Nintendo games. The film was released in April 2023 and was an international box office success ranking as one of the highest-grossing films of 2023. Black then reprised his role Po in “Kung Fu Panda 4”, and voiced Claptrap in “Borderlands” (2024), and is set to play Steve in “Minecraft” (2025).

In 1994, Black teamed up with friend and fellow actor Kyle Gass to form Tenacious D, a tongue-in-cheek musical ensemble lovingly, if sarcastically, dubbed the “Greatest Band on Earth.” The duo landed an HBO series in the late 1990s, before releasing their self-titled debut album — featuring Dave Grohl on drums — in 2001.
Their second album, The Pick of Destiny (2006), served as the soundtrack to a film that fizzled at the box office, but they rediscovered their mojo for Rize of the Fenix (2012), which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album. In 2015, Tenacious D won a Best Metal Performance Grammy, for their cover of Dio’s “The Last in Line.”Black and Gass went on to create the animated series Tenacious D in Post-Apocalypto, its songs eventually surfacing on the group’s 2018 album Post-Apocalypto.

On December 21, 2018, Black created a YouTube channel called Jablinski Games. Within one week of its launch, it had amassed over 1 million subscribers. Jack created the channel largely to bond with his son, who serves as videographer and editor of the channel. 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. As of June 2023, Jablinski Games has 5.04 million subscribers and 216 million video views.

Black dated actress Laura Kightlinger between 1996 and 2005. In January 2006, Black became engaged to singer Tanya Haden, the daughter of jazz bassist Charlie Haden. They had both attended Crossroads School, and 15 years after graduating they met again at a friend’s birthday party. They married on March 14, 2006, in Big Sur, California. Their sons were born in 2006 and 2008. Although an atheist, Black identifies as nominally Jewish, and fatherhood influenced his decision to raise his children in the Jewish faith.

Black has a philanthropic side, too. He’s done charity work for Red Nose Day, an annual campaign launched by the Comic Relief organization dedicated to ending child poverty. The Huffington Post reported that Black traveled to Uganda as part of the 2015 Red Nose Day activities and met a homeless boy who wanted an education. In 2018, Black hosted a gala benefiting My Friend’s Place, a nonprofit organization aimed at assisting homeless youth in Los Angeles, CA.

Jack Black has been able to make both children and parents laugh together for decades now, and his infectious energy has inspired many throughout the years. Here are some of the most interesting and fun facts about the star.

• .Jack Black was born with the name Thomas Jacob Black on August 28, 1969, in Santa Monica, California. He eventually went by Jack as a nickname.

• His parents, Judith Lois (Cohen) and Thomas William Black, who were rocket scientists, divorced when Black was 10. His mother, Judith Love Cohen, worked on the Hubble space telescope.

• Black actually had a tough time during his teen years, and during that, he slipped into drug addiction. He had a problem from as young as 14 when he first started using cocaine. Admitting that he started hanging around with some rough characters, Black actually ended up being afraid to attend school due to someone wanting to hurt him so badly. But thankfully, he was able to turn things around.

• Jack’s older brother Howard was a huge inspiration for him, introducing him to rock music when he was young. Tragically, Howard passed away from AIDS in 1991 at age 36. His oldest brother, Neil, is an engineer, scientist, and musician.

• Jack enrolled at UCLA where he made acquaintance with Tim Robbins who made him part of ‘The Actor’s Gang,’ an acting troupe. It was in Tim’s directorial venture ‘Bob Roberts’ that Jack made his acting debut in 1992.

• Originally met his wife in high school. They both attended Crossroads, a private school. They met again 15 years after they graduated high school at a friend’s birthday party.

• He and his wife eloped after dating less than a year. They were married in Big Sur, California by the same minister who performed Shane Stanley and Val Barri’s ceremony (2005).

• Became a father for the first time at age 36 when his wife Tanya Haden gave birth to their son Samuel Jason Black on June 10, 2006, and then a second time on May 23, 2008, when their second son Thomas William Black was born.

• Discovered he could act when he played a game of Freeze after a Passover seder.

• Black’s first television credit is a commercial for the Atari game, Pitfall. Jack was just 13 years old at the time of the commercial. 

• From 1993 to 1996, he appeared in various television series, such as ‘Life Goes On,’ ‘Northern Exposure,’ ‘The Innocent,’ ‘The X-Files,’ ‘Mr. Show,’ and ‘Picket Fences.’

• Black has popped up in tons of music videos throughout the years. Here’s a list of them: Beck’s ‘Sexx Laws’, Foo Fighters ‘Learn To Fly’, ‘Low’, and ‘The One’, The Eagles of Death Metal’s ‘I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)’, Sum 41’s ‘Things I Want’, and Weezer’s ‘Photograph.’ 

• For his role in the 2005 remake of King Kong, Black refused to wear any make-up. This decision came after he heard a fabricated rumor about Clint Eastwood never wearing makeup in his films.

• In Nacho Libre, the song that Jack Black sings at the party was improvised. Jared Hess admitted he didn’t have time to come up with one, Jack quickly replied “Leave it to me, I already got one.”

• The filming of Nacho Libre looks like it was a ball, but it wasn’t all fun and games. During one wrestling scene, Black jumped from the ring and cracked his head open on a chair. In addition to a wicked shiner, he’d need to have stitches above his right eye.

• Jack has previously joked that he was not acting in his Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle scenes when his character was infatuated with Dwayne Johnson’s character. He was in fact actually infatuated and the cameras just kept on rolling.

• He voiced the title role in Kung Fu Panda, which grossed $20.3 million on its opening day, June 6, 2008, as well as Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3; this is his favorite role, and he praises the tutoring of co-star and two-time Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman.

• Black played a fictional version of author R. L. Stine in ‘Goosebumps.’ He also voiced two of Stine’s creations, ‘Slappy the Dummy’ and ‘The Invisible Boy’ in 2015. He reprised the role in the film’s 2018 sequel ‘Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween.’

• Jack used Darth Vader as inspiration for his Bowser voice in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

• For the tenth anniversary of School of Rock, Jack Black reunited the band on the stage. They performed a truly epic version of “It’s A Long Way To The Top”, and, in true School of Rock fashion, nearly everyone got a solo. To view the 10-minute video of the concert click >here<

• 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”.

• Jack didn’t play guitar until he was 23. He convinced future bandmate Kyle Gass to teach him guitar in exchange for meals from Jack in the Box.

• 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, due to 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).

• Is good friends with Tim Robbins, Cesar Gonzalez, and Will Smith.

• He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6144 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on September 18, 2018.

• He is fluent in Spanish and has showcased his language skills in several interviews and projects.

• Jack often enjoys spending time outdoors and engaging in activities like hiking and cycling.

• Nowadays, YouTube is one of the most popular platforms for people to take in content. Because of its popularity, many famous celebrities have now jumped on board the bandwagon as well. Jack Black is one of those, as the popular actor and rockstar actually has his own YouTube channel. ‘Jablinski Games’ is the name of his channel, but it isn’t just gaming that he does, as his channel has basically become a weekly vlog, which provides hilarious videos, every Friday.

• He Loves Disneyland. He loves it so much that he actually chose to spend his 50th birthday there. Black enjoyed a couple of days at the theme parks for his birthday with his family where he attempted the 50 Challenge, which is to ride 50 rides in that time.

• Black is actively involved in numerous charitable causes and has participated in various fundraising events. One highlight was a trip to Uganda for Red Nose Day that changed his life, saying he “couldn’t help but think of his own children.” He also appeared in a charitable episode of The Price is Right, raising over $70,000 for the Society of Women Engineers.

Jack Black is a beloved actor and musician known for his comedic talents and infectious energy. With a career spanning over three decades, he has captured the hearts of audiences worldwide. Through his versatility and impressive range, Jack Black has become a prominent figure in Hollywood, leaving a lasting impact on the entertainment industry. From his breakout roles in films like “School of Rock” and “Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny,” to his memorable voiceover work in animated movies, Black has showcased his immense talent and charismatic personality. So here’s to you Jack, have a Happy Birthday!

Thank you for visiting my blog and reading today’s post, have a lovely week and I shall see you next Wednesday.