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Fans of comedy superstar Jack Black were gifted this summer with an embarrassment of cinematic riches featuring the rotund, hyperactive manchild. First came DreamWorks's family-friendly Kung Fu Panda, with Black voicing that film's ursine journeyman. But for those who prefer a blacker Black, he'll play a star-in-withdrawal in Tropic Thunder, due out next month. Black sat down with Blender for a surprisingly forthcoming talk about some of his own experiences experimenting with hard drugs:

You did some really hard drugs when you were pretty young. How did that happen? In ninth grade, I did acid and cocaine. I wanted desperately to be an American badass. There's something so romantic, when you're a kid, about being a criminal. You want to belong to the tough-guy club. Running from the cops. Hiding in the bushes. Making schemes and plans to get it over on the Man.

Your character has some major withdrawal symptoms. Did you ever go through that? I've never had to detox. So I asked Robert Downey Jr. for some advice. He was cryptic. He didn't really tell me what he went through. He just said, "Three things. If you're kicking, three things you've got to know: You need a bucket, a chocolate bar and Gatorade." The chocolate bar, because, you know, your body needs the sugar. That's all you can hold down, I guess. You need Gatorade because you're going to be vomiting so much and crapping so much. And the bucket for the vomit and crap.

Did you ever try heroin?
 Once, many years ago. Somebody gave me a small amount of it in an envelope and I kept it for months. I didn't want to use it, but I didn't want to throw it away, either, because I was always curious about it. The legend is that it's the best feeling in the universe. Ten times better than sex, but very dangerous, and you end up dying, choking on your own vomit. And also the legend is if you take it and you write, like, "Stairway to Heaven" or something—it makes you a genius.

Did it make you a genius?
 No! No! No! Nothing came from it. This was the late '90s. My girlfriend at the time was there, and I snorted it, but she didn't know I did it. It didn't agree with me. I couldn't really feel my legs, and my heart felt like it was slowing down too much. I thought, Oh, my God, it's just going to shut me down. I'm going to die. So I told my girlfriend, "I'm going to take a walk." I went down to the 7-Eleven at the bottom of the hill, and I had this strange sensation that my legs were pumping, but the feet were just sort of lifeless stumps. I did a little shopping and then walked back up the hill and survived. And never did it again.

As if he were a smackhead-savant, Black's very first taste of horse led him directly to the one place where he could retrieve the three talismans identified years later by his rehab-Jedi co-star. For where else better to pick up a Mars bar, some Gatorade Fierce, and a Double Gulp vomit-receptacle at virtually any hour than the nearest 7-Eleven?