The role that gave Jack Black an out-of-body experience: “I started to feel a little faint”
Jack Black has worked with indie director Richard Linklater twice in his career. The first time they collaborated was on School of Rock, inarguably the most commercial film of Linklater’s career and definitely the most beloved film Black has ever been a part of. Their second film, though, couldn’t have been more different. A black comedy based on a real-life murder in small-town Texas, the film casts Black as a mortician who befriends and later kills the widow of an oil salesman and banker. As part of his research for the role, Black met the real killer in prison – and claimed to have what felt like an out-of-body experience.
When Linklater read a Texas Monthly article entitled “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas”, he knew it would make a fascinating film. The article told the story of 39-year-old Bernhardt ‘Bernie’ Tiede and his oddball friendship with 81-year-old millionaire widow Marjorie Nugent. Tiede met Nugent in 1990 after he arranged her husband’s funeral, and they struck up an unlikely friendship. In 1991, she altered her will to leave her $10million fortune to Tiede instead of her son Rod. Then, in 1995, Tiede shot her in the back four times with a .22 calibre rifle.
Tiede eventually admitted to her murder in 1997. He confessed that he’d used her money to help local businesses and civic activities and claimed that he killed her while in a fugue state. You see, he alleged she was emotionally abusive toward him, and when she pushed him too far one night, he dissociated because of childhood sexual abuse. Tiede was eventually sentenced to life in prison, but this split the town of Carthage.
Amazingly, despite committing such a deplorable act, Tiede was still one of the most beloved people in town. As District Attorney Danny ‘Buck’ Davidson told the Longview News-Journal, some townsfolk thought of Tiede “as being real nice and doing nice things, and they’d like my office to go real easy on him. And then, there’s a group that wants no mercy.”
All in all, Tiede’s sad tale doesn’t sound like it would lend itself to being a blackly funny, satirical film. Black told The Film Stage that the mortician, who had been incarcerated for 12 years by the time he spoke to him, wondered the very same thing. In fact, he flat out told Black, “When they told me you guys were going to be making this movie and it was going to be a dark comedy, I didn’t really understand what’s funny about it.”
Black had to admit that he understood why Tiede would feel that way. However, he reasoned that the filmmaker’s approach would be more of a “How did that happen?” thing rather than an attempt to turn tragedy into a laugh riot. He assured Tiede that the film wouldn’t be a smear campaign and that “There was going to be some comedic elements, but it was not going to be at his expense.”
In truth, Black simply wanted Tiede’s blessing for the film, but he felt a huge sense of pressure when confronted with him. He knew Tiede would be thinking, “Please tell my story right. Please don’t make me look like a monster. I’m not a monster.” To his surprise, the weight of responsibility to present this man’s life in as sensitive a way as possible began to affect him physically.
“I started to feel a little faint,” admitted Black. “I felt like I was going to pass out at a couple of points in there. I felt like my hands were getting really big and swollen. It’s hard to explain, but I was having a slightly out-of-body experience during the interview.”
Thankfully, Black didn’t collapse in front of Tiede, and by the end of their chat, he felt like the man understood what the filmmakers were envisioning. Meeting Tiede was also a revelation for Black, as it made the entire theme of the movie hit home in a personal way. He said, “That he was the most loved guy in the town was a real reflection of who he was as a person and that if he could commit murder, maybe anyone could under the perfectly wrong circumstance.”
In the end, Black felt certain Tiede was “actually a great person that just snapped”.
