G.I. Jack
Jack Black went from drug-munching fringe-comedy weirdo to box-office-storming father of two. Blender grills the Tropic Thunder star about: pharmaceutical experimentation (acid in ninth grade!), the secret to a perfect wedding (only invite stuffed animals), Hollywood success (“I still feel like a loser”).
You play an addict in Tropic Thunder. You did some really hard drugs when you were pretty young. How did that happen?
In ninth grade, I did acid and cocaine. I wanted desperately to be an American badass. There’s something so romantic, when you’re a kid, about being a criminal. You want to belong to the tough-guy club. Running from the cops. Hiding in the bushes. Making schemes and plans to get it over on the Man.
Did anything good come of trying the drugs?
I don’t think so, but I had a lot of fun when I did the acid, laughing harder than I ever had, seeing the absurdity in life in a way that I’d never really considered. I was whole for the first time ever, like, The whole universe makes sense. But then later that night I couldn’t go to bed, and I wanted it to be over. It wasn’t funny anymore, the universe no longer made sense, and I was stuck in this prison in my brain for, like, six hours. I only had, like, one hour of absolute bliss. So the pain outweighed the glory, and I never wanted to do it since. Maybe the experimentation prevented later abuse, because I did not party nearly as hard as the other kids in high school and college.
Your character has some major withdrawal symptoms. Did you ever go through that?
I’ve never had to detox. So I asked Robert Downey Jr. for some advice. He was cryptic. He didn’t really tell me what he went through. He just said, “Three things. If you’re kicking, three things you’ve got to know: You need a bucket, a chocolate bar and Gatorade.” The chocolate bar, because, you know, your body needs the sugar. That’s all you can hold down, I guess. You need Gatorade because you’re going to be vomiting so much and crapping so much. And the bucket for the vomit and crap.
Did you ever try heroin?
Once, many years ago. Somebody gave me a small amount of it in an envelope and I kept it for months. I didn’t want to use it, but I didn’t want to throw it away, either, because I was always curious about it. The legend is that it’s the best feeling in the universe. Ten times better than sex, but very dangerous, and you end up dying, choking on your own vomit. And also the legend is if you take it and you write, like, “Stairway to Heaven” or something—it makes you a genius.
Did it make you a genius?
No! No! No! Nothing came from it. This was the late ’90s. My girlfriend at the time was there, and I snorted it, but she didn’t know I did it. It didn’t agree with me. I couldn’t really feel my legs, and my heart felt like it was slowing down too much. I thought, Oh, my God, it’s just going to shut me down. I’m going to die. So I told my girlfriend, “I’m going to take a walk.” I went down to the 7-Eleven at the bottom of the hill, and I had this strange sensation that my legs were pumping, but the feet were just sort of lifeless stumps. I did a little shopping and then walked back up the hill and survived. And never did it again.
With fatherhood, did you give up all the hard stuff?
Oh yeah. I was already pretty mellow before having the babes. I haven’t been partying for years. And now that I’ve had my babes, there’s no real nightlife. Not that I really want to anyway. A lot of creepy crawlies out there.
Do you even smoke anymore?
Very little. There is an occasional celebratory jay, but it’s not a wake-and-bake scenario anymore at all. And no cigarettes. To help stop, I took Wellbutrin for two years, and then I stopped the Wellbutrin before Tropic Thunder. They say you’ve got to be careful quitting Wellbutrin because some people have withdrawal symptoms. And I was like, “Good! That’s the movie. That’s what I need! Withdrawal symptoms!” I didn’t have shakes and crazy quakes—it feels like your brain is sucking in on itself, like there’s a small black hole in the center of your brain galaxy. But it only lasted for a couple of weeks, and then I was back to normal.
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