Black, Jack (1969-…), is a popular American actor and rock musician. He is known mainly for his comic roles. Black also sings and plays guitar in the comedy rock band Tenacious D.
Thomas Jacob Black was born on Aug. 28, 1969, in Santa Monica, California. He began acting in commercials at age 13. Black briefly attended the University of California at Los Angeles. Around the same time, he joined the Actors’ Gang. This Los Angeles theater group was founded by the American actor Tim Robbins. Black made his motion-picture debut in Robbins’s comedy Bob Roberts (1992). During the 1990’s, Black performed on several television shows. They included the drama “Picket Fences” and the comedy “Mr. Show with Bob and David.”
From 1997 to 2000, Black starred with the American comedian and musician Kyle Gass as the rock duo Tenacious D in the TV comedy series “Tenacious D.” The show and group attracted a cult following—that is, a small but dedicated group of fans. The duo released the album Tenacious D (2001). Black and Gass starred in the film Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny in 2006. They also released a sound track album of the same name that year. In 2012, Tenacious D released the album Rize of the Fenix. Tenacious D won a 2014 Grammy Award for best metal performance for their recording of “The Last in Line” from This Is Your Life, a tribute album to the American rock musician Ronnie James Dio.
Black gained notice in the role of a record store employee in the movie High Fidelity (2001). His other films include Shallow Hal (2001); School of Rock (2003); King Kong (2005); Nacho Libre (2006); Margot at the Wedding (2007); Tropic Thunder (2008); Year One (2009); Gulliver’s Travels (2010); Bernie and The Big Year (both 2011); Goosebumps (2015), in which he played the American author R. L. Stine ; and Jumani: The Next Level (2019). Black provided the voice of a panda in the animated movie Kung Fu Panda (2008) and its sequels, Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) and Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016).
