The scene that almost killed Jack Black: “I don’t know how I didn’t get my neck broken”
Although he’s appeared in several action-packed movies featuring dangerous and death-defying stunts, Jack Black isn’t typically the guy tasked to run away from explosions and dive through the air in slow motion while all hell breaks loose around him.
Sylvester Stallone kicked plenty of ass and took plenty of names in Demolition Man, but Black’s contribution to the sci-fi blockbuster was little more than a glorified cameo, and much the same can be said of his involvement in Kevin Costner’s Waterworld.
He was placed in some degree of mortal peril in Peter Jackson’s King Kong, but it was the visual effects wizards who did most of the heavy lifting after the actor was tasked to pretend as though he was fighting for his life while standing on a set largely comprised of green screen. Again, much the same can be said of the Jumanji sequels, so he’s not exactly an expert in action heroism.
However, when he was deployed to an actual physical location and instructed to engage in stunt-filled sequences that wouldn’t be taken care of with CGI, he almost died. That would be enough to swear anyone off doing their own stunts ever again, even if there’s a truly bizarre tale behind the sequence that left the star perilously close to having his clogs popped on camera.
Naturally, it involves a Hawaiian island, a pregnant water buffalo, and the ultimate tribute to the expectant animal. Oh, and he was almost completely naked at the time. “I read the script, and I was like, ‘I want to do this; I have to do it because it’s the funniest script I’ve read in years, and I was born to play this role,'” he told Collider of Ben Stiller’s all-star comedy Tropic Thunder.
Still, he had his doubts: “I’m not going to get on a fucking water buffalo naked, I’m not going to do it,” was his immediate reaction until the director convinced him otherwise. Stripping down to his pants and acquiescing to the request, he probably regretted it when he ended up staring death in the face.
“One time, she actually flipped my ass off of her,” he reminisced of his hulking scene partner. “She did a little bucking bronco, and I made a miraculously safe landing in between some boulders. I don’t know how I didn’t get my neck broken.”
As it turned out, the reason why the water buffalo, or Bertha as she preferred to be known, was so unwilling to have a Hollywood actor as her passenger. Unbeknownst even to her trainer, the animal was up the duff and gave birth shortly after working with Black, and her calf was even named ‘Little Jack’ to cement their bond.
It would have been an entirely different kind of honour had ‘Little Jack’ been named after the guy who died from being tossed through the air by Bertha before shattering his neck on the jagged rocks below and being declared dead on impact, but thankfully he managed to survive by the skin of his teeth.
