Jack Black

Jack Black is an American actor, comedian and musician whose screen persona combines rock-and-roll exuberance, physical comedy and an unusually expressive voice. Born Thomas Jacob Black in Santa Monica, California, in 1969, he began acting as a teenager and built his early film résumé through supporting parts in the 1990s, including work in Bob Roberts, Demolition Man, Dead Man Walking, The Cable Guy, Mars Attacks! and Enemy of the State. Those appearances made him familiar as a comic scene-stealer before High Fidelity gave him a broader breakthrough as Barry, the volatile record-store clerk whose musical bravado and vulnerability pointed toward many of his later roles.

Black became a mainstream leading comic actor in the early 2000s. Shallow Hal and Orange County placed him in larger studio comedies, but School of Rock was the defining step: as Dewey Finn, a failed musician masquerading as a substitute teacher, he turned his real musical energy into a family-comedy performance that earned major awards attention and helped make the film a durable audience favorite. He followed with a mix of broad comedy, ensemble work and character parts, including King Kong for Peter Jackson, The Holiday, Nacho Libre, Tropic Thunder and Richard Linklater's Bernie, the last of which showed a quieter and darker dramatic-comic range.

Voice acting became central to Black's career when he began playing Po in DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda franchise. The role used his comic timing and warmth while giving him a long-running animated identity across features and specials. He later voiced Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, whose song “Peaches” became a pop-culture moment, and continued to appear in family and adventure films such as Goosebumps, the Jumanji sequels and A Minecraft Movie. His database credits also include The House with a Clock in Its Walls, The Polka King, Borderlands and further Kung Fu Panda entries.