Steve Pratt talks to actor Jack Black who rocks both on and off screen... and advises other hopefuls to do the same.

SILENCE at the back of the class, Hollywood actor Jack Black wants to offer a few words of wisdom about making a career in the arts. "It's important to do as many of the arts as you can. Painting, drawing, acting, directing, editing, music," he says.

"You have to cast a wide net and not just focus on one thing. I don't think it's good to put all your eggs in one basket."

After playing a teacher - although a fake one - in his latest movie School Of Rock, he's earned the right to offer advice. He's taken it to heart himself, acting in movies such as High Fidelity and Shallow Hall as well as performing as lead singer in the rock-folk comedy group Tenacious D when not acting on screen.

"I couldn't have done either of them if I didn't have the other one," says Black. "I didn't really have an acting career before Tenacious D, and the thing about the group that people like is the theatricality, the acting we do in there. So it's always been a combination for me."

Acting and music come together in School Of Rock in which his hell-raising but impoverished guitarist Dewey Finn takes a job as a substitute teacher and enters a rock 'n' roll competition with a group of musically-gifted fifth graders.

The film has elevated Black, after a series of supporting roles, into the A-list and done very well at the US box office. "This is the first film written for and built around me," he acknowledges, while rejecting he felt any added pressure in his first starring role.

"It makes it easier if it's a good writer who knows you well and writes in your voice. A good piece of writing protects you from being bad. I was tailored a suit of heavy metal armour."

School Of Rock has also turned him into a sex symbol, something he considers a "slightly absurd" idea. "I'm pushing 15 stone. If a man at just over 5ft 6in and 15 stone can be attractive to the opposite sex, I guess I'm a hero," he adds.

His outsize comic talent has also earned comparisons to the late John Belushi. He finds that comparison flattering because that performer had a definite influence on him. "We get compared from the fact we are both tubby and have eyebrow technique, and have a similar raunchy energy," he says. "I wasn't thinking about how great a performer he was, but how I would like to hang out with that guy."

He admits that he and Dewey have things in common. "He's me five years ago before I had a career, when I was a little more desperate and frustrated. The difference is I make fun of rock for a living, and Dewey would never do that," he says.

Black didn't mind sharing the limelight on screen with his young musical co-stars, whose ages are barely into double figures. "These kids were amazing musicians and took direction really well," he says.

"We were a band, for real. We shared the load and the terror, and the glory was ours. It was a great experience. I've made a few films and am used to working with actors who've done tons of movies and are really jaded, who just approach things like any other job.

"But these guys were really psyched to be there because it was pretty exciting doing their first movie, and that rubbed off on me."

He admits that between scenes he was always goofing around with his co-stars and, like some naughty schoolboy, was scolded and told to behave himself.

He discovered acting and. perhaps more importantly, the attention it could garner, when he was very young. "I was nine and it was a Passover dinner and the host, 'it's time to play the freeze game', which is an improvisation game," he recalls.

"I kept saying, 'freeze' because I wanted the attention. There's a black hole in my heart that needs to be filled. There's a gene in my DNA that says I need more attention and love than most. My insecurity drives me."

Some have claimed that he's sold out by making a mainstream commercial movie like School Of Rock, but he disagrees: "I just stop liking people when they stop understanding me any more if I doing something for a larger audience. I didn't use the f-word and don't show my butt crack, so I guess you could say I've sold out."

* School Of Rock (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow

Published: 05/02/2004