Jack Black has pulled some hefty roles but still remembers his humble beginnings, writes Vicky Roach

AS he sits cross-legged on one of the over-stuffed leather lounges in the gentlemanly Club Bar at Sydney's Park Hyatt hotel, it's hard not to associate Jack Black with the cuddly, animated character he plays in Kung Fu Panda.

Especially when the 41-year-old Californian, be it consciously or subconsciously, begins to channel Po's Eastern turn of phrase.

"I realised pretty early on that clowning was my true path," says Black, who pings mini-cannonballs from his bare, abundant belly in the fantasy adventure Gulliver's Travels in what can only be described as a full-screen, full-frontal assault on our senses.

"If you have any fear of looking like a fool, then that's not going to be a good path for you to take," he says sagely.

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For a man who has just got off an early-morning flight from LA, Black is so remarkably chilled, one can only assume he has been getting meditation tips from Kung Fu Panda's Furious Five.

"This is not my first barbecue, no-ho," says the popular funnyman, before revealing that his tastes are actually much more upmarket than charcoaled steak.

In town to promote his new film - Gulliver's Travels is aimed at the same family audience that made Night at the Museum a hit - Black says he spread his schedule over three days to allow time to visit fine-dining establishments such as Rockpool, Quay and Cafe Sydney, where he reportedly serenaded a drinks waiter with a rendition of Rupert Holmes' Escape (The Pina Colada Song), much to the amusement of fellow diners.

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In contrast to a previous Park Hyatt guest, Kristen Stewart, who flipped the bird to paparazzi from one of the balconies, Black wears his fame relatively lightly.

Posing for pictures on the edge of Sydney Harbour, the comedian acknowledged fans who recognised him with a wave and a shout-out.

Unlike his mate and Gulliver's Travels co-star Jason Segel, who attributes his comedic talents to a sink-or-swim moment in the school playground when he was being ridiculed by fellow students, Black says he only discovered his funnybone as a theatre major at college.

"I never really made a distinction. I just liked getting up in front of an audience and playing characters."

In Gulliver's Travels, a 3D update of Jonathan Swift's 18th century novel, Black plays a lowly mailroom clerk who bluffs his way into a travel writing assignment about the Bermuda Triangle.

After getting lost at sea during a freak storm, Lemuel Gulliver is sucked through a wormhole into a parallel universe where he towers over the inhabitants.

In this strange new Lilliputian land, Gulliver's giant stature accords him the sort of respect he never had at home.

"I never got stuck in a job that I hated, but I have been a small fish in a big pond lots of times," says Black.

"Even my early acting days, having trouble finding work and going on a million auditions and getting rejected."

But Black says he never resorted to classic out-of-work-actor employment such as telephone marketing or dressing up in a vegetable suit.

"Whenever it came down to getting a real job, I would just go back and live at my mum's and hope for the best."

>> Gulliver's Travels opens on Boxing Day. Read the rest of Vicky Roach's interview at Heraldsun.com.au

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