Disney Wiki
Advertisement
Disney Wiki

Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black is an American actor, comedian, musician, producer, and YouTube personality. He is best known for his various film roles, such as Dewey Finn in School of Rock, Carl Denham in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong, Ignacio/Nacho in Nacho Libre, Jerry McLean in Be Kind Rewind, Lemuel Gulliver in the 2010 Fox adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, and both voiced Slappy the Dummy and portrayed R. L. Stine in the 2015 comedy horror film Goosebumps. He is also well-known for voicing Zeke in Blue Sky's 2002 film Ice Age, Lenny in DreamWorks' Shark Tale, Master Po, the overall main protagonist of the Kung Fu Panda franchise, and Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

For Disney, he portrayed Fiedler in the 1998 Touchstone Pictures film Enemy of the State. He also guest-starred in the Phineas and Ferb spin-off Take Two with Phineas and Ferb and in the 2011 musical comedy film The Muppets. Additionally, he posed, alongside Will Ferrell and Jason Segel, as one of the Hitchhiking Ghosts in "Where You Can Go On The Ride of Your Afterlife" in the Disney Dream Portrait Series. He also portrayed Sid in the 1999 Touchstone Pictures film Cradle Will Rock and Barry Judd in High Fidelity. He currently plays Joseph Stalin in the 2023 Hulu series History of the World, Part II and Captain Bombardier in the Star Wars Disney+ series The Mandalorian.

Black was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of satellite engineers Thomas William Black and Judith Love Cohen. He was raised in Hermosa Beach, California. His mother worked on the Minuteman nuclear missile guidance system, the Apollo lunar module guidance system, 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 was raised Jewish, attending Hebrew school and having a bar mitzvah. His other ancestry includes English, German, Irish, Polish, Russian, and Scottish.

Black's parents divorced when he was ten, and his father then stopped practicing Judaism. Black moved to Culver City with his father and frequently visited his mother's home. As a child, he appeared in a commercial for the Activision game Pitfall! in 1982. 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. He later attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but dropped out during his second year to pursue a career in entertainment.

Roles[]

Gallery[]

External links[]

Advertisement