The star who made Jack Black “so jealous” that he wanted to quit acting: “It paralysed me”
If Jack Black had made it in music before he made it in acting, then he may not have bothered with acting at all, even though thespianism was what helped him wedge his foot in the showbusiness door to begin with.
Once he’d made enough of a name for himself in Hollywood, he had the leeway to dedicate more of his time to those musical proclivities, and he’s found a place where he can enjoy the best of both worlds. However, it’s enough to make you wonder what could have happened if he’d ditched acting entirely.
It wasn’t until the turn of the millennium that the boisterous funnyman started gaining mainstream prominence, thanks to his breakout role in Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity, but he was already a veteran by that point, with dozens of film and television credits to his name, dating all the way back to 1984.
Clearly, he was in it for the long haul, but a chance encounter with another well-known name in the industry back when their dreams of conquering screens both big and small were exactly that caused Black such a crisis of confidence that he seriously considered ditching his performative aspirations.
In the mid-1980s at Santa Monica’s Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, Black was partnered up with a newcomer named Maya Rudolph, and he was instrumental in launching her career. They were paired up by their drama teacher for an improv class, and he took her to her first Groundlings show, the comedy troupe she eventually joined, which led directly to her being recruited by Saturday Night Live.
These days, he can look back on it and laugh, but at the time, the seriousness of the competition got right under his skin, to the extent that he had to take a long, hard look at himself and re-evaluate his priorities. Obviously, he didn’t abandon his dreams of making it as an actor, but he seriously thought about it.
“I was really enjoying being king of the hill of the theatre department, and then here comes Maya, and she was just so funny and gifted and relaxed, and it really made me question whether I should even continue, like, that’s how strong she was,” he recalled. “It’s like I was Salieri and she was Mozart, and I was so jealous that it kind of paralyzed me.”
Even though he’d already been paid for working as an actor, something that his peers couldn’t say, even if it was only for a video game commercial, when Rudolph arrived on the scene and matched him every step of the way, Black began to wonder if it was worth sticking with drama, since she was that good.
He did, and so did she, and they both became big names, so it worked out for everybody in the end. However, for a brief moment, he wasn’t so sure, and it could have led him down a completely different path had he followed through and walked away.
