Jack Black Passed on a Role in One of His Favourite Films—and He Still Regrets It
File this under career what-ifs: Jack Black passed on a role in one of his favorite movies — and he wishes he hadn’t.
Hollywood has a million near-misses, but this one stings a little: Jack Black says he passed on Syndrome in Pixar's The Incredibles. Yes, the main villain in a movie he now calls one of his all-time favorites. Oof.
The almost-Incredible casting that wasn’t
Talking with Capital FM, Black said he was offered Syndrome back in the day and turned it down. At the time, he didn’t know director Brad Bird and wasn’t convinced the character had enough layers. He pushed for a rewrite to give the baddie more dimension. The response from the filmmakers, according to Black, was essentially: thanks, but we’re moving on.
'I was offered Syndrome in The Incredibles... I do regret saying no.'
He’s pretty candid about how that played out. Once the movie came out and crushed, he realized he’d forced the issue on the wrong project and learned his lesson. Meanwhile, Jason Lee ended up voicing Syndrome and the film became, well, The Incredibles.
Where he is now: Anaconda
Black is currently headlining a new Anaconda, which isn’t a straight remake so much as a meta setup: four childhood friends head to the Amazon to shoot a low-budget remake of the 1997 cult favorite that starred Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube. Reviews so far are mixed. Critic Chris Bumbray called it a mostly laugh-light PG-13 holiday romp that never really digs into reboot culture or the original Anaconda the way it should. He says the movie really loses the thread once the mutated, man-eating snakes show up, with Gormican trying to balance gore and gags and not quite sticking the landing. His kicker is brutal: the dead-serious 1997 version ends up way funnier than this one that’s actually trying to be a comedy.