No small jobs for Jack Black

MANILA, Philippines - Jack Black stars in the heartwarming family 3D comedy Gulliver’s Travels as Lemuel Gulliver, a very imaginative clerk in a newspaper’s mailroom who dreams of being a travel writer someday. Black’s Lemuel Gulliver is a small man in a big pond — the monstrous canyons of Manhattan, where he toils in a clerical position at a newspaper. He talks a big game, but he has achieved very little because he is always afraid he will fail. After Gulliver convinced the travel editor Darcy (Amanda Peet) for whom he has a long-time crush into an assignment writing about the Bermuda Triangle, he goes there only to be transported to an undiscovered land, Lilliput.

In this fantastical new world, Gulliver is, at last, a bigger-than-life figure — in size and ego — especially after he starts telling tall tales, taking credit for his world’s greatest inventions, and placing himself at the center of its most historic events. But when Gulliver loses it all and puts the Lilliputians in peril, he must find a way to undo the damage.

Ultimately, Gulliver becomes a true giant among men only when he learns that it’s how big you are on the inside that counts.

What is your character Gulliver like?

“He’s always aspiring for something bigger and better. But he doesn’t have the courage to put himself out there. Fear is his obstacle. But once he gets to Lilliput, he’s like a king. In New York, Gulliver feels really small and wants to do big things, but he’s afraid to make it happen. When he lands in Lilliput, he starts to feel really big, but it’s a feeling based on false pretenses.”

Are you familiar with the book when you were a kid?

“I was fond of the story when I was a kid. But I never read the unabridged version back then; it’s pretty dense material. It’s only fairly recently that I read the actual book. Once they offered it to me, I said yes, and then I read the book and it was a double yes.”

How did you adapt the movie for this generation?     

“There’s a lot of material in the book that didn’t make it into the movie because there are some very spicy passages. It gets pretty violent and graphic. The original piece is not really for kids; it was a satire for adults.”

Has having children changed you?

“It is extremely rewarding and challenging. They are magical creatures and I love them to death. You need to spend time with them. You can’t just go and work on the computer — you need to give them attention and listen to them and play with them and those crazy pretending games take a lot of energy.”

In the movie, Gulliver relished much fame, are you like him?

“It is always fun to meet new people who have enjoyed my work. Sometimes it can be exhausting if you have had a long day and what would take one minute ends up taking an hour because you have to sign pictures and talk to people but for the most part it is very gratifying. I like it because I am always being thanked and high fived, there is a lot of positivity coming my way.”

(Gulliver’s Travels opens Jan. 8 in theaters from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.)