Comedy icon Jack Black has an extensive filmography with some absolute classics — and some very big misses, including Shallow Hal. From School of Rock to Kung Fu Panda , the 54-year-old actor has over 190 credits to his name with numerous award wins and nominations. Despite his prolific career, not everything goes quite to plan as Jack has recently put the breaks on one of his biggest projects, Tenacious D.
The decision was made after bandmate Kyle Gass, 64, made a birthday wish while on tour with Jack in Sydney in which he said: ‘ Don’t miss Trump next time.’ Fans of Tenacious D have slammed The Holiday star for being ‘spineless’ and ‘turning his back’ on Kyle after being vocally anti-Trump in the past. Another fumbled project was 2001’s Shallow Hal , which has been widely criticised for fatphobia and Jack himself called it a ‘sell-out’ role which he was not proud of.
‘I had an opportunity to work with some dudes I thought were really funny, but it didn’t turn out as I’d hoped,’ Jack said in 2006. ‘I wasn’t proud of it, and I got paid a lot of money, so, in retrospect, it feels like a sell-out.’ The Farrelly Brothers wrote and directed the comedy, having had success with Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary.
In Shallow Hal, the Bowser star plays a man named Hal who is hypnotised to see only inner beauty, with the joke being he falls for a fat woman (because he perceives her as thin). At the time, this had a suggestion of prog.