“So f-ing hilarious”: Jack Black names one of his favourite movies
The majority of comedically-inclined actors find themselves determined to stretch their dramatic muscles to showcase the unseen weapons in their performative arsenal, but Jack Black has been doing just fine without ever signing on for blatant Oscar-baiting prestige pictures.
That’s not to say he hasn’t intentionally veered away from his signature persona at all, with Richard Linklater’s black comedy Bernie finding the star on Golden Globe-nominated form as the beleaguered companion of an elderly woman who ends up growing so frustrated he murders her in cold blood.
It also happens to be one of the best performances of his career. Black was also a highlight of Peter Jackson’s elegiac ode to his favourite movie when his Orson Welles-inspired turn as Carl Denham in King Kong required him to bust out a different set of skills than audiences had been accustomed to.
For the most part, though, comedy is Black’s wheelhouse and comfort zone, and he’s made himself a very nice career on the back of it. However, despite going out of his way to try and create a project with the director of one of his favourites, the pieces never fell into place, and they’ve remained outside of each other’s orbit ever since.
In an interview with Black Film, Black referred to Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead as “one of my favourite movies ever,” aptly describing the classic rom-zom-com as “so f-ing hilarious.” He even revealed they were working on something together, but despite the prospect of the pair uniting on a comedy inspired by a nonfiction book about conspiracy theories and extremism carrying limitless potential, it wasn’t to be.
Jon Ronson’s Them finds the author interviewing and chronicling his experiences with extremists, exploring the absurdity he encounters along the way. Wright confirmed that he was working on it all the way back in 2007, saying, “it’s early days, but I’m sure if it happens, Jack will be involved.”
For his part, Black shared the proposed film was “about all the extremists of the world, of all shapes and sizes, from different cultures, and what they all have in common.” It wasn’t to be, and he’s yet to be involved in any of Wright’s subsequent productions, but at least he’ll always have Shaun of the Dead to revisit as one of his personal favourites.
One of the greatest British comedies of the modern era, Wright’s love letter to zombie cinema launched not only his cinema career to new heights, but also that of cohorts Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Even more than 20 years on from its theatrical bow and it remains as entertaining and eminently rewatchable as ever, with Black just one of Shaun of the Dead‘s voluminous celebrity supporters.
