Jack Black Forgot He Starred In The Christmas Movie That's Taking Over Prime Video's Charts

Have you seen "The Holiday?" If you are my wife, the answer to this question is, "Yes, probably about 423 times." I have seen "The Holiday" almost as much, simply as a result of living with a woman who turns this Christmas movie on whenever it gets a bit chilly outside. In that sense, the film is absolutely deserving of its spot on /Film's list of the most rewatchable Christmas movies, even while it manages to send a tinge of despair throughout my body as soon as I hear the opening credits.

But it turns out I am not the only long suffering husband to have been trapped in an endless time loop wherein Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz are seemingly doomed to swap lives and fall in love for eternity. "The Holiday" is currently dominating the Prime Video charts, as wives across the world plunge their husbands into this festive nightmare scape.

It's not all that surprising to see this 2006 rom-com, which I'm sure is charming the first few times you see it, making a run up the charts. As the festive season approaches, what more could you want than Cameron Diaz falling in love with prime era Jude Law in the snow-laden English countryside? If that's not for you, then the movie also has Kate Winslet traveling to Los Angeles and falling for an alarmingly clean-shaven Jack Black. All of this seems to have been perfectly concocted by writer, producer, and director Nancy Meyers to yield Christmas-time streaming success. However, it seems that while the film is leaving a lasting impression on Prime Video subscribers, it may've had less of an effect on Jack Black himself, who for a brief moment, forgot he was even in this movie.

Fans of Jack Black might be more accustomed to the devilishly funny frontman of Tenacious D giving us a dose of his delightfully animated comedy in such classics as "School of Rock." But "The Holiday" sees him in relatively restrained mode, acting simply as an affable love interest for Kate Winslet's lovesick society columnist Iris Simpkins. After Iris' ex-boyfriend gets engaged, the British writer looks for an escape and agrees to a house swap with Cameron Diaz's Los Angelese-based Amanda Woods. It's in LA that Iris meets Black's Miles Dumont, a film composer who is going through similar relationship issues. Meanwhile, over in England, Amanda falls in love with Jude Law's charming book editor Graham Simpkins (a part for which Robert Downey Jr. auditioned with a terrible British accent) and it's all very quaint and festive, etc.

Such heart-warming fare led by talent of this magnitude was always going to prove to be a Christmas hit, and "The Holiday" certainly did an admirable job at the box office upon its 2006 debut, making $205 million on an $85 million budget. Sadly, the reviews weren't quite as positive, with the movie currently bearing a 51% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — though it does have an 80% audience score, proving that cozy Christmas love stories with big name stars will always find their way regardless of predictable plotting and a tone that often borders on saccharine.

Now, almost 20 years after it first debuted, the movie is once again proving its staying power over on Prime Video. At the time of writing, streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol shows that, in the United States, "The Holiday" has been the number one movie on the streamer for the last 21 days. Also, the United Kingdom and Lithuania seem to quite like the film, too, with "The Holiday" hovering around the number two and three spots in both countries over the past week.

So, whether Winslet and Diaz's rom-com sounds like your kind of thing or not, there's no denying its ascent to modern Christmas classic territory. For Jack Black, though, it seems the movie isn't quite as memorable.

Back in 2019, Jack Black was asked by Variety about his favorite Christmas movie, revealing box office hit and modern holiday classic "Elf" to be his ultimate festive film. "Jon Favreau and Will Ferrell just knock it out of the park," he says in the clip, before the interviewer reminds him that he could have chosen his own Christmas movie. "Do I have a Christmas movie?" he responds. "Which one is mine? Oh, 'The Holiday!' Obviously, 'The Holiday!' Nancy Meyers, genius."

Did Jack Black really forget he had a Christmas movie? I think a case could be made that "The Holiday" is as much a straightforward rom-com as it is a "Christmas movie," which is something I really wish I didn't know but do. So, maybe Black just filed the film away under "that rom-com he did back in the 2000s" and didn't necessarily associate it with the festive season. He should have a pretty good recollection of the movie either way. As People has pointed out, Nancy Meyers actually sought out the actor for the part of Miles, with the writer/director previously saying:

"I saw 'School Of Rock' and thought he was the cutest guy and fell in love with him. So Jack came over to my house, I made him some pasta, we sat in my kitchen and I told him the idea. When I asked him if he'd ever be in a movie like this, he replied: 'Nancy, have you seen my work?' But I assured him that I had and told him that I thought he was fabulous and that he'd be in a movie with Kate Winslet. He just said, 'Yeah.'"

Black is also quoted as saying he "didn't really know" if he could pull off the rom-com love interest thing, but that Meyers "insisted that she saw in [him] all the skills that were necessary to be adorable." He added, "I'm used to being crazy and 'rock-n-rolly,' which is a little different than this world. For me, it was a chance to stretch a little bit." In that sense, Black would never forget such an experience, even if his momentary lapse during a red carpet event suggests otherwise. Now, if I could actually forget "The Holiday" altogether, it would be a true Christmas miracle.