On Sunday afternoon, I was pointed to a round table in a makeshift room on one of the upper levels of New York City’s Javits Center – the location of New York Comic-Con, an ever-growing sort of step-cousin to the more famous San Diego Comic Con. (And it is a lot like San Diego’s version, but grimier, as only New York could possibly make something already grimy into something grimier.) I was asked if I’d be recording a video of my time with Jack Black. I was not. “Oh, good, this will be nice, you can just chill with Jack Black in the corner.” I liked the sound of that, “chilling with Jack Black in the corner of a fake room.” (I added the “fake room” part, because it was true.)
So, I chilled with Jack Black in the corner of this fake room. While we chilled, we talked about a few things. Goosebumps, his new film, mostly. (Read our review of Goosebumps here.) In the film, Black plays a curmudgeonly version of author R.L. Stine who brags about his book sales and hates the sound of the name “Stephen King.” Using the author as a character is a clever way into a ultra-popular book series with, what, a 100 or so titles so far? (It’s tough to get an exact count, because there are so many spinoffs.)
While chilling, we also talked about Charlie Kaufman’s new film, Anomalisa — a film Black has nothing to do with, but these are the kind of subjects that get brought up when chilling. Same with Enemy of the State, a movie I forgot Black was in until I rewatched it on cable a few weeks ago. Why bring it up? Hey, we’re chilling, why not?
Do you do that thing where you go on the Comic Con floor wearing a Jack Black mask, then reveal to people, “It’s really me, Jack Black”?
Kind of. I wore a luchador’s mask in the Nacho Libre style one year. And that works.
Did you reveal yourself?
No, I don’t want to be recognized. That’s the whole point of it.
I saw Goosebumps at a special screening back in July. You were there.
That’s the first time I had seen it with Danny Elfman’s score.
It’s great. I didn’t realize he was involved until then.
Yeah, he crushed it. It was right in his wheelhouse; right in the pocket. Really, he’s the only guy I can think of that would do this movie justice. Because when you think of “funny scary,” who does good “funny scary” music? He’s the only one who comes to mind. It’s a very specific title.
People five years younger than me love Goosebumps. I missed the Goosebumps phenomenon completely.
Me, too.
But I still enjoyed this movie a lot. You don’t have to know anything about Goosebumps.
No, you don’t have to know anything. And there’s kind of a sophisticated conceit in there. It’s kind of a meta, Charlie Kaufman-esque thing. Have you seen his new animated film?
Anomalisa? Yes. I loved it. Have you seen it?
Yes!
The scene in the hallway where the couple is just saying “fuck you” to each other over and over might be the funniest thing I’ve seen all year and very much a Charlie Kaufman scene.
[Laughs] And I believe that’s the beginning of a non-stop, mind-blowing sequence. Because it’s in real time, for a long time, with the sex and the “ohhh” — that’s an amazing achievement.
I hope people see it.
You know, when it wins some festivals, people will take notice. It’s going to get a lot of laurel wreaths, as they say.
You play R.L. Stine as a curmudgeon. Is that a fair word?
Yeah.
He brags about his book sales to the teenagers.
[Laughing] Yeah, there’s good stuff in there that he was a good sport to let us take liberties with. He’s not like that at all.
I’d hope not.
He doesn’t harbor this deep resentment.
Did you have to have a long talk with him in a, “even though I’m playing you this way doesn’t mean I think you are really like this,” way?
Yeah, we did. We’d met in New York and talked about how I was going to do it. He’d already read the script and had already signed off. He thought it was a great script and a great way in … I think this project has been brewing for a long time. I think the guys who did Ed Wood, [Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski], did one of the early drafts. They’re the ones who cracked the code on making R.L. Stine a character in it as a way into the world. I think maybe Tim Burton was loosely attached at one point. But Rob [Letterman] did such a brilliant job with it. It’s the kind of movie he was born to make with his obsession with monsters.
His last movie, Gulliver’s Travels, didn’t go over well…
No. No.
So it’s nice to see him rebound like this.
I knew he was going to crank it out of the park and it was just a matter of time before he matched the material perfectly… But you never know what the hell’s going to happen. I’m counting on all those “five years younger than you” people.
With them it’s the opposite. They hear about the changes and wonder if they will like it.
We played to a very hardcore Goosebumps audience in Los Angeles at this little place called Cinefamily – awesome place that shows niche movies and stuff – and they flipped out.
I was flipping through channels and Enemy of the State was on and I forgot you were in it. There are all these movies, pre-High Fidelity, that now feel like you’re making a “famous-person cameo.”
[Laughs] Yeah! Kind of! They also feel, to me, like a guy who is just searching around, fumbling in the dark, trying to find his voice.
Well, to you. It’s always weird when someone becomes famous, but then that person pops up in an older big movie before they were famous.
You know, I’ve noticed that. I was watching 300 and Michael Fassbender is kind of a glorified extra. And I was like, wait a second, isn’t that the guy who is like one of the best actors of our time? And he has three lines?
This also happens if you re-watch Band of Brothers. It’s Fassbender, Tom Hardy and James McAvoy.
Amazing.
Do you have a “Gene Hackman yelled at me” story?
No, he was great.
He’s one of my favorites, but I do love the stories.
And I know it was a particularly tough one for him because of the night shoots. He was just like, “Oh, this is fucking killing me.” Some people hate them; I love them. I’m a night person by nature, nocturnal. But he was sweet. He was a really nice guy. I didn’t have a lot of scenes with him, but maybe I just got lucky.
Mike Ryan has written for The Huffington Post, Wired, Vanity Fair and New York magazine. He is senior entertainment writer at Uproxx. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
