Jack Black is still blond. We only interviewed him a few months ago when he was finishing Tropic Thunder, but the 'do is still there. Now he's got Be Kind Rewind to talk about. He plays a video store clerk who has to remake all the store's tapes because he magnetized them. They call it Sweding, because they tell their customers it is the Swedish version.

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CraveOnline: You've still got the blond tints.

Jack Black: Yes, I’ve been tinted. Highlights.

CraveOnline: Are you still shooting Tropic Thunder?

Jack Black: This was a full blonde hairdo and it’s just growing out. I haven’t dyed it back to the original darker brown because I’m lazy. I just don’t want to use any more chemicals if I don’t have to. And it looks stylish right? It looks like I went to Vidal Sassoon.

CraveOnline: Do you have any project you have to get back to normal for?

Jack Black: I do have a project, but I’m going to be wearing a wig. A biblical comedy.

CraveOnline: Are you playing Moses?

Jack Black: No, I am not playing anyone famous from the bible. I’m just playing a guy who is wandering through.

CraveOnline: So you remade King Kong two years ago, and now you got to play King Kong. How cool was being the title character?

Jack Black: Well, this was a quite shorter shoot. Thirty minutes to shoot this version of King Kong versus six months to shoot the other one. But, it was fun to be the monster for a minute, especially with the ingenious toy truck on my face.

CraveOnline: Was that your favorite movie to Swede because of your connection to it?

Jack Black: That one was so short. That was just part of a montage. That was kind of cool that it was a montage without any edits in it. Did you notice that? It’s kind of brilliant. I don’t think it’s been done. A montage where you don’t edit? Leave it to Michel [Gondry] But, yeah, I really liked doing Robocop because that’s my cup of tea. I love Sci-Fi, action. I always wanted to be the Robocop.

CraveOnline: Not Driving Miss Daisy in that dress?

Jack Black: Well, that was a stretch for me. That was me trying to grow. No, got on the dress with the worker boots, a really good look, disguised the voice nicely. Have not heard from the Tandy estate. No one has called to say thumbs up or thumbs down yet.

CraveOnline: When you were a little kid did you ever run around with a camera doing your own stuff?

Jack Black: I didn’t have a camera, no. I was always pretending to be characters from Television or films, but always just sort of like a kid horsing around. No one was filming. But I had a tape recorder.

CraveOnline: I also love the idea of a world where in your position would not know the lyrics to the song from Ghostbusters.

Jack Black: We didn’t have the rights to the song at the time that we were shooting that scene and Michel asked if I would come up with a song that sounded like it, but was not it lyrically or rhythmically. And I was like, "Yeah, sure." And I just cranked it out. But then we got the rights to the song, so it was a waste of time, except that it has still made it into the movie because it’s pretty funny. Because it’s funny to go from my really bad version of it to the real song.

CraveOnline: So that was just the first thing you came up with?

Jack Black: "When you’re walking down the street and you see a little ghost. What are you gonna do? Ghost bust ers!" See, because I know in the original it says, "Who ya gonna call?" That’s the thing, the hook. But when I said, "Whatcha gonna do?" He said, "Non! Too close. Same rhythm. We will get sued." So I changed it, "What are you gonna do?"

CraveOnline: Did you ad lib a lot in the film?

Jack Black: There was a lot of improvisation. More so than any movie I’ve ever done. Michel had all the beats down, but when he first pitched the movie, he was saying it was an improv movie. So I was prepared for that but he had a lot more written than I think he was planning on. It was just clearly written by a dude who didn’t speak English. "I think what you mean is blah, blah, blah." So that was what the improv was more like, translation improv.

CraveOnline: How does Gondry interest you as a filmmaker?

Jack Black: He interests me in his inventiveness. Like the shot I was talking about earlier, where you are doing a whole montage, passage of time within one shot, where you’d normally have 15 shots and that would take a whole week to shoot? He’s doing that in one day without any edits. He’s stretching the boundaries and leading the way in many ways and I think a lot of people are going to imitate him and be part of that, carving out new territory.

CraveOnline: How is fatherhood going?

Jack Black: So far, no screw-ups. So far, so good. He’s super cute. He’s a dance machine. He does scream if he doesn’t get what he wants. I think that’s normal, but I’ve learned some new techniques. Someone told me that you have to explain to them why they are not getting what they want. Even if he doesn’t speak language yet, he can tell that I’m trying to communicate and that he respects me. He still cries, but he cries with less urgency and less protest.

CraveOnline: They can tell that you are trying to tell him not to cry.

Jack Black: I’m gonna try that. It was like this morning he was going through all those things in the drawer in the bathroom while I was getting ready brushing my teeth and he was trying to get the shaving cream, which I haven’t been using obviously, and I said, "No, no, no, close the drawer." And he went "Ahhhhhhh!" And I said, "Sammy, I know you want to get the shaving cream and you’re upset because you can’t because you’re gonna make a mess and…" and he’s going, "Ahhhhhhhh!"

CraveOnline: Are you going to raise him Jewish?

Jack Black: I don’t think we’re going to be real religious, but there is still time. I might change my mind at the last minute. And go, "You’re Jewish!"

CraveOnline: How much fun did you have being a cartoon panda?

Jack Black: Cartoon panda was fun. I mean, it’s an easy gig in terms of not having to wake up at the crack. Not having to get into costumes or make up. You just go straight to the recording session at noon. Have some Koo Koo Roo chicken. Do a few hours of vocal work and then see you in a month. And I’ll come back for another day. So you work like once a month for a few years.

CraveOnline: Did you act out any of the Kung Fu?

Jack Black: Yeah, I get really physical because they have cameras there, but they just use it as reference, not as motion capture.

CraveOnline: So how do you think you look?

Jack Black: As a panda? Strong. Solid. Well built. I’ve seen like, I’d say 60% of it done. The animation is still being tweaked. I’m going to do a little more vocal work tomorrow actually, if you want to come down.

CraveOnline: Have you heard the reaction from people seeing the bumpers telling moviegoers not to talk during the movie at AMC theaters?

Jack Black: In a good way? Like "Oh god! I’m not going to that movie." That’s a reaction as well. That’s good. I have not heard any trickle down from that. But I remember at the time when they were like, "Will you do this?" I was like, "I don’t like the idea, I don’t think it’s going to be good, but alright let’s do it." And then I did it and was like, "That was good. That was funny." I’m glad that you’ve heard people like it.

CraveOnline: Does your character have an accent?

Jack Black: In the last cartoon I did my character had an accent. In this one, no.

CraveOnline: Which movie did you wish they could have Sweded that they didn’t?

Jack Black: I love the old Jack Nicholson movies like The Shining, Five Easy Pieces. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest would have been cool.

CraveOnline: If they had Sweded one of your films, which one would you have wanted to see them do?

Jack Black: I would like to see them do, Nacho. I would like to see someone else in the stretchy pants.

CraveOnline: How do you pick a script? Does it have to be funny on the page? Is it something that appears as though it could be funny under the write circumstances?

Jack Black: You can never tell unless you respond to it. I respond to things, not just because they are funny, but because they move me in a way like this idea was interesting to me because it was saying, "Hey! These two guys, these two friends in this kind of rundown neighborhood get creative and find a way to escape their own dull existence" and I responded to that neighborhood good vibe, honest kind of, I don’t like to say ‘feel good,’ because that sounds like studio executives saying "It really had heart." But I responded to it in an emotional way that I liked.

CraveOnline: What’s up with your music?

Jack Black: We’re writing songs. We’ll see. We need a little more time. I’m thinking it’s going to be some time in the ‘tens.

CraveOnline: How about that WGA strike gig?

Jack Black: I think they tried to get Rage Against The Machine and they said no. And then they called Bruce Springsteen and he said no. And then they called ten other people and then they called Tenacious D and we said yes. I think that’s how it happened, because we never back down from a challenge and it’s hard to say no when it’s a good cause. We like writers and we believe they should be compensated fairly. We like to save the day. We like to ride in and save the day and get all the credit for being good guys.

CraveOnline: Who do you play in Tropic Thunder?

Jack Black: We are all playing actors going out to make a war movie, but then we get into trouble when we go out to Vietnam we accidentally stumble into a different part of Asia. We go off the map and we trespass into a drug cartels territory and they are shooting at us for real, but we think it’s part of the movie, so we just keep on acting and shooting blanks. I play kind of a Chris Farley-esque comedian who is trying to go for a stretch.

CraveOnline:Did you have your own stunt double?

Jack Black: Yes, I did. I did have a stunt double. He was great.

CraveOnline: After Margot at the Wedding, do you get drama offers at all?

Jack Black:: I do get mostly comedy offers and that’s fine with me.

CraveOnline: Do you want to do more dramatic parts at all?

Jack Black: No, not really. I like directors. If there is a director with a vision and I like their work, that’s how I’ve been doing it. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to work with great people. Let’s see if that continues.

CraveOnline: So Harold Ramis is one of those also?

Jack Black: Yep. Yeah. He’s great. Groundhog Day.