When Jack Black first put on his skin-tight Speedo and popped out of his trailer, nearly naked, director Jared Hess remembers, “He was a little bit embarrassed at first.” However, the cast and crew burst out in howls, Black strutted around like a proud peacock and the director says, “That was a good sign it was going to be pretty funny, and once he started to walk the walk, he became a true Lucha Libre.”
Hess decided to follow up his indie Napoleon Dynamite success with a comedy about the world of Mexican wrestling in the 1970s. He found a mostly-unknown cast, and then cast Black in the role of the friar who cooks at an orphanage and is inspired to become a wrestler.
“I loved Napoleon Dynamite, that is why I reached out to him, as we say in the Hollywood insider’s community,” Black recalls. “I said, ‘Jared, I am a fan of your work and I assume you are a fan of mine, lets work together.'”
Black wasn’t familiar with the world of wrestling, except what he knew as a kid with the WWF. He liked Rowdy Roddy Piper–“he was my favorite just because he was crazy. I am always drawn to the psycho nuts and he seemed legitimately kind of coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. When I was a kid I knew that Mexican wrestlers wore cool looking superhero masks, but I had never seen a wrestling match or any of the old films until Jared asked me if I would want to play a Luchador. I did some research, watched some old films, went to a few matches and opened my eyes to a whole new world.”
That world includes tiny Spandex. He doesn’t know what size he picked, but Black asks, “Does spandex come in a size? I am probably an XL but I went with a medium just to really suction cup it all together.”
Kids may love him now, but they won’t be able to watch him in his next film, the adult-aimed Tenacious D. Black doesn’t worry about playing to his demographics, whether it is kids or adults. “I just work on cool things and this was something I wanted to do because I really liked Jared‘s work regardless of whether it was a rated R movie or PG. I don’t really think in terms of that, I think in terms of it makes me laugh. Like I am doing the Tenacious D movie, we finished shooting that, which is practically rated Z, profane.”
A new father–his wife gave birth to a son just a day after the interview with Hollywood.com–Black says he doesn’t want his future children to see all of his films at an early age. “I don’t know if it has been proven that bad words harm a child’s brain, I don’t think that is the thing. I don’t think that, but I am not going to let my kid hear any Tenacious D… Well, actually we have got a couple of songs that are okay for kids, but probably 13 once he is 13 I think he is allowed to hear some bad words.”
Black insists he’s going to be the best Daddy in the world. “We got all of the furniture and necessary things. We got this special rocking chair that she can give the baby milk while she sits on the special rocking chair. We got a vibrating chair, apparently the baby likes to be in a swing that vibrates, go figure. And we got all kinds of strange contraptions. Our house has been turned into a complex system of weights and pulleys and baby booby traps everywhere.”
He’s already worrying about where his child is going to pre-school and what college he will attend. “I think, ‘Am I going to put cameras in every room of my house to spy on babysitters to make sure that they don’t shake the baby?’ I start watching TV shows that scare me a little bit. I love video games but then yesterday I was reading about how they can be addictive and kids shouldn’t and I was thinking ‘Am I really going to be the parent that tells him no video games?’ I don’t know.”
And wrestling will be something he can teach his son, too, because he worked with some of the great Mexican wrestlers of the day. His favorite was working with the diminutive brothers duo, known as the “Satan’s Cavemen.” He also says he worked hard to perfect an authentic Mexican accent, adding, “I pulled a Meryl Streep.”
“But the wrestling was the most fun,” Black recalls. “I had a good experience with Satan’s Cavemen, the wrestlers who came up to my navel, and they were really tremendous athletes too. They kicked my ass but good, the flung me around like a rag doll. They punctured my privates but for the good of the film.”
And although he was quoted in the past as saying he’d rather go naked than wear the skin-tight wrestling outfits, he amends his statement now. “I would like to call a press conference to print a retraction. I would definitely rather wear the tights than be naked because they cover my penis.”
So what does he wear now? He looks down his pants during the interview and says, “Tighty whities? No, boxers.”
