Jack Black

Thomas Jacob Black spent the 1990s as the guy who shows up for one scene and takes it. He is in Dead Man Walking, Waterworld, Demolition Man, The Cable Guy, The Fan, Mars Attacks!, The Jackal and Enemy of the State, usually for four minutes, usually louder than anyone else on screen. High Fidelity in 2000 was the film that let him do it for longer, and after that the studios worked out what he was for.

The obvious description is that he plays enthusiasm. The more accurate one is that he plays men whose self-belief is wildly out of proportion to their competence, and he plays them without contempt, which is the hard part. Dewey Finn in The School of Rock is a failure lying to a room of children about who he is, and the film works because Black never lets you look down on him. The music is not a sideline either: he has a Grammy, and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny is the fullest expression of the joke he has been telling since the beginning.

His accolades include an Emmy and a Grammy, plus nominations for two Critics' Choice Awards and three Golden Globes, and he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018. The second act has been family franchises and voice work: Po across four Kung Fu Panda films, the Jumanji pictures, Goosebumps, Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, A Minecraft Movie. Bernie, in 2012, is the one that shows what happens when he turns the volume all the way down.