Step 1: Give Jack Black a bitchin’ nickname, please:
In the dark comedy “The D Train,” Black plays Dan, a small-town insurance agent who is a little too manic and intense and who thinks he’s running his high-school reunion committee, much to the chagrin of the other people on the committee. One night, Dan sees the most popular guy from his high school, Oliver Lawless (James Marsden), in a commercial and concocts a plan to fly to L.A. to track Oliver down and convince him to come to the reunion. That way, if Oliver comes, all the others will come, too, and Dan will finally be respected as the cool dude he has always wanted to be and get a really cool nickname.Things get kind of crazy in L.A., and even though Dan succeeds, more or less, Oliver’s return to his small town isn’t exactly how Dan imagined it.
James Marsden: “I didn’t have any nicknames. I always wanted one but didn’t feel important enough. Jimmy, Jimbo, those didn’t count. You wanted something like Ace. Or Flipper.”
Jack Black: “If you were a gymnast, Flipper would work. Jackety McBlackerty is one I called myself.”
Was Tenacious D [Black’s band with fellow comedian Kyle Gass] ever brought up? “I tried to get them to change the name of the movie. I was like, ‘Wait a second, I have a band Tenacious D and the fans are going to think it’s a Tenacious D movie!’ They were like, ‘Too bad.’ And now Kyle hates me because I have a movie called ‘The D Train’ coming out.”
Step 2: Describe what it’s like playing Dan:
Black: “I really liked this movie because of Dan. The least popular guy was very interesting to me because I’ve always been fascinated by those people in real life. The people who are the least loved in the room. Why? What makes some lovable or not lovable? I remember back in the day, when I was just starting out in comedy, with my band Tenacious D, we’d be playing clubs and there was this one guy that everybody hated, this one comedian. He would get a comedy show together and do all the work, flyers etc. And everyone would do the show because he would always get a packed house, but then he’d inject himself in the show. And everyone thought he was a piece of sh*t and made jokes about him. I just thought there was something so interesting in that… the hated one. I wanted to make a documentary about him, follow him around. What’s life like to be that guy? So I had an opportunity to play a character like that and also I felt like I could relate to it. I know what it is to want to be liked. It’s an interesting character study.”
Step 3: Describe what it’s like playing Oliver:
Marsden: “I think he’s a guy with high hopes. You grew up, in high school being the popular guy. With guys like Dan, and people around him, worshipping him. He was the basketball star, sleeping with the best looking girl in school. These kids who peak in high school, they move to Hollywood with an inflated sense of reality, thinking they’ll be the next Marlon Brando and find out there are 5,000 others just like them, trying to do the same thing. Oliver had some mild success with a commercial but it didn’t turn out like he thought. Real life sets in and it humbles him.”
Step 4: Try to find a cool high-school photo:
Marsden: “By the way, I played the cool guy in the movie? I was NOT this guy in high school. At all, in Oklahoma. This is a true story. The directors asked me for photos from high school of me looking badass, your senior photos looking like a stud. I told them, ‘Don’t got ‘em.’ I had horrible style, bad haircut, skinny. I was in drama. I sent them what I had and they said, ‘This is a real problem.’ Jack’s photos from high school, however, were badass! He’s wearing a green, military jacket… he looked like Emile Hirsch! He was a f**king badass!”
Black: “I know. It was a problem. We really had to do some Photoshopping.”
Step 5: Attend your high school reunion:
Marsden: “I think I was working on a movie and couldn’t go. I would have gone. I would have been anxious about it but I would have gone. I still keep in touch with most of my high school friends.”
Black: “I went to mine and it was fun. Saw people I hadn’t seen in 20 years, lot of catching up to do. Lot of weird emotions, too, insecurities coming back. It’s like you’re a teenager again, wondering if they like me? Did I say something dumb? That joke wasn’t funny, nobody laughed. Aaargh.”
Step 6: Give advice to someone starting out:
Black: “It always tough for me to give advice to young people or anybody. The way my life went, it was like, ‘Oh man that was super lucky. That was lucky, and that was lucky.’ It’s all just lucky, so what do I say? ‘Be lucky.’ So then it becomes what do you want to do? If you meditate and figure that out, then ask yourself what do you want to do for free? Because that’s probably going to be what ends up happening. I knew early on I wanted to be in the arts. I liked acting, doodling, singing. Acting was my favorite, though because I liked the audience and the laughs. When did it click? Probably when I realized I didn’t need a headshot anymore.”
Marsden: “I was lucky, too. My dad spotted me the cash to live out here for a year and if didn’t work out, I’d come back and finish college. He also knew someone who was a casting director and sent me out on auditions. I got super, super lucky.”
“The D Train” is pulling into theaters now.