Ringing in box office hit..

[KiwiCoromandel]

All with Jack Black is not black and white, it seems......

AN LA hot-dog-eating contest, beer bongs, heavy-metal karaoke: these would seem to be Jack Black's definition of a good time, at least if you assume that the sort of vulgar characters the actor has played in films such as School Of Rock and High Fidelity bear some relation to who he is off-screen.

Anyone who has seen him perform as half of the debauched musical duo Tenacious D, in concert or on television, knows that this wild and crazy guy makes Steve Martin look positively G-rated.

But he revealed a very different side on a recent night off from promoting his latest adventure, Nacho Libre, a comedy about the Mexican freestyle fighting sport of lucha libre.

At the organic vegetarian restaurant Real Food Daily in West Hollywood, he broke wheat-free bread with a friend, the cult screenwriter and actor Mike White.

Black, for the record, does eat meat. That would imply the choice of restaurant came from White, a vegan. Never mind that White was suffering from food poisoning. "I've been barfy all day," he said, wincing - although that didn't stop him from ordering vegan tacos.

Black, mainly concerned with eating something filling, copied that. You'd think that these guys would be sick of tacos after the months they spent in Oaxaca, Mexico, filming Nacho Libre, which made well over its $38 million budget at the US Box Office alone.

Black stars as a Norwegian-Mexican priest who secretly swaps his frock for a mask, cape and tights and moonlights as a luchador - a fighter - to save the orphanage where he works. He flung his paunchy body around the wrestling ring with abandon, bravely performing most of his own stunts.

White wrote the film, along with Jared Hess, the director of Napoleon Dynamite, and his wife, Jerusha Hess. Nacho is the first feature from Black & White Productions, the company the two friends founded after joining forces on School Of Rock, which White also wrote.

Over a vegan dessert of tiramisu and a chocolate confection, the two discussed the likelihood that they would appear pretty lame if they ended the evening at a vegetarian restaurant. Black suggested they go hot-tubbing at Splash. He was referring to a spa with themed spa suites. White shot him an amused look.

OK, that was obviously a joke, but what about playing frisbee in the sculpture garden at UCLA? Or rather, in Black's words: "Dude, you want to flip the 'bee?"

White: "I hate exercise."

Black: "But you don't realise you're running."

White: "I'd probably still find a way to get hurt."

They both cracked up. Alas, each had somewhere to go. Black needed to get home to his musician wife, Tanya Haden, who was expecting their first child any minute (they have since had a boy).

And White? "I'm worried Starbucks is going to close soon," he said, as deadpan as could be.

Source: The Sun-Herald

image:AP:JACK BLACK:All with Jack Black is not black and white, it seems..