"She completely out-salted me. She won the battle of funny little dirty ditties with that song." He laughs. "And her version of that song has stuck with me all these years."
He's speaking to promote his new film The House With A Clock In Its Walls co-starring Cate Blanchett. But the multi-talented musician and comedian is in the mood to reminisce about how he got here.
Continuing our trip down memory lane, he offers, "But School Of Rock, now that's my tombstone. That's my finest moment. It's where all the planets aligned perfectly for me. I had a great writer who wrote for all my strengths and I had that in my corner. That was a very fortunate moment for me and it felt like it was a home run for me. We really connected with a large audience, it was fun, and it rang all the bells for me. A great combination both commercially and artistically."
But that was not the first moment when Hollywood sat up and took notice of Black.
"That would be Hi-Fidelity. That was the first time where I thought, 'I have a foothold here. I don't need [to give out] my headshots anymore.' From that point I started getting offers and was no longer scraping and scratching to find jobs," he says. "Before Hi-Fidelity, I felt like I was always climbing a mountain. You'd go on auditions and if you did a really great one it just felt good, like a buzz you'd have all day, but after Hi-Fidelity I didn't really have to audition anymore. The game changed very dramatically."
Life has changed in his personal life since the early days, too. Married to cellist and artist Tanya Haden for 12 years, they have two sons, Samuel, 12, and Thomas, 10.
"When an old film comes on TV that I'm in, I don't like to watch myself. I don't say to the kids if Kung Fu Panda is on, 'We are going to watch Daddy's movie now!' That is a thing I don't like to do. They prefer Will Ferrell and other comedians, anyway." He shrugs. "Everything I do annoys them and they think I am a humiliating creature. They tell me that I'm embarrassing and often say, 'Dad, shut up! You are so stupid!' but that's as it should be. I'm one of the cool dads at school to other kids, just not to my own."
Looking further back, he recalls his first job.
"Tim Robbins gave me my first part in a movie called Bob Roberts. I was 20 and I had dropped out of college. Then the film went to the Cannes Film Festival and I smoked a joint with Tim and Robert Altman on top of a mountain in Cannes. That was a great moment," he laughs. "I think Tim is still smoking joints, but I haven't smoked with him since Cannes."
Now starring in The House With A Clock In Its Walls, in which he plays a warlock who lives in a haunted house, he says, "My wife and kids sometimes feel like our house is haunted with spirits but I am not sensitive to that. My wife had an experience where she saw a ghost but I've never seen one. I wish I had because that would mean proof of afterlife and it would change my whole world perspective."
He stars opposite Cate Blanchett, who plays a white witch. Black recounts the first time they met.
"It was the night before the Oscars years ago and we were at the same party. I was doing what I call 'the walk of shame,' meaning that I was holding all these free swag bags. It's embarrassing because you don't want to be seen holding your Gucci bags filled with creams and lotions." He leans forward. "But they are really good re-gifts. So, I am running to the car with the bags and who do I see in the valet parking line? It's Cate Blanchett, my favourite actor! And she says, 'What are you holding there?' And I tell her it's for my friends," he says.
"I stuttered a little bit and I told her how huge of a fan I am of hers. She was very nice and said she also enjoyed my work. So, in my mind there was a little rainbow connection between us. I thought, 'Maybe someday we will be in a movie together.' But I didn't even dare to dream — and now it's happened.
"Maybe it was that little rainbow connection we shared when she saw me walking with my shame and my Gucci bag," he smile. "And the lesson from that is, if you see someone you really admire, you should tell them. Be brave. Because for all I know, she might not have done the movie if I hadn't reached out in that embarrassing valet line all those years ago."
