9 Times That Comedy Actors Failed At Serious Roles

7) Jack Black – King Kong

Early on in his career, Jack Black took a host of bit-parts in dramatic movies, including the likes of Dead Man Walking and Enemy of the State. After he broke out with comedy, however, coming to the fore after Richard Linklater’s School of Rock, a fresh-off-the-Lord-of-the-Rings Peter Jackson decided to hand Black his first ever dramatic leading role, in King Kong. The results, unfortunately, were not good.

It’s obvious that Jackson hired Black for his energy and innate affability – characteristics that would make the pretty odious Carl Denham more tolerable – but while Black’s schtick works in his comedy roles, in King Kong it just comes across as false. And when he’s ultra-sincerely spouting lines like, “It wasn’t the airplanes…it was beauty killed the beast,” it almost seems like he forgot he wasn’t starring in a spoof.

The effects have dated rather badly in King Kong, but Black still remains the most disagreeable thing about it ten years on.