Interview: ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ Star Jon Heder Drops Into Chicago

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Those who live in Chicagoland but can’t make it to Sundance 2014 this weekend are invited to ring in a ten-year anniversary of one of the festival’s biggest premieres, “Napoleon Dynamite.” Shown on the big screen in multiplexes located in Woodridge and Naperville, each showing will feature an appearance from actor Jon Heder, who went forward from the cult hit to appear in films like “Blades of Glory” and “When in Rome,” and appear as a voice actor for numerous video games and animated movies. He reappeared as Napoleon recently for an animated series of the same name.

Meeting in downtown Chicago, I chatted with Heder about the phenomenon of the little indie monument, his own reflections on the character, how “Napoleon Dynamite” is like “Nebraska,” the two Kanye West songs that reference his work, and more.

Below is some information on Heder’s appearance:

Show Schedule for Hollywood Blvd Cinema in Woodridge, IL:
Fri Jan 17th 5:00 PM 7:00 PM 9:00 PM
Sun Jan 19th 3:00 PM 5:00 PM 7:00 PM
For tickets and additional details visit: www.atriptothemovies.com

Show Schedule for Hollywood Palms Cinema in Naperville, IL:
Sat Jan 18th 3:00 PM 5:00 PM 7:00 PM 9:00PM
For tickets and additional details visit: www.hollywoodpalmscinema.com

Jon Heder will be signing an hour before each showtime.

HollywoodChicago: “Napoleon Dynamite” was a film that essentially went viral when it was released. Do you think it’s possible in our current time for a small indie comedy to create the same type of pop culture sensation?

Jon Heder: I think we got it right at the right time. If we were any later, it would have been harder. I guess people want to see, like if something is funny, you’ll just see it on YouTube. And for every movie you see, there’s maybe ten or twenty that you don’t see that have been made. But they don’t see the light of days because they’re indies, or don’t have a hardcore audience, which makes you wonder how the movie made it, because we had no audience; we had no name actors.

Napoleon Dynamite
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight

HC: The film has a foreshadowing hipness too, like with its “thrift store boutique” costume design, which became a serious thing after its release. Do you think if this came out now, in the midst of such trends, that people would think of the film’s design to not be as sincere?

Heder: I think what’s good about the film is that it is relevant for a lot of different people. If it had come out now, I think people still would dig it, especially even more so now. We came out at the beginning of, how do they call it, “geek chic”? Where it’s the movement where it is cool to be kinda geeky, kinda nerdy … I mean, there are true geeks, but people just thought it was cool to call themselves geeks while not being a geek, equating it to being “fans of things.” But everyone is cool now. But with that said, it seems like we’re still in that movement.

HC: What do you think it was in particular that helped the mainstream connect with the film?

Heder: I think there was an innocence. You know, I ask myself, why do the same fans love Justin Bieber and these other uber-produced good-looking people, where it’s about sex-sex-sex, and the life you can’t have, why do those people also like Napoleon, where it’s not that? Maybe it’s something that means there are two sides, where here is the side we want to be, and here is the side that we know we are. I don’t know.

Napoleon Dynamite Photo credit: Fox Searchlight

HC: The idea that perhaps everyone essentially feels like an outsider?

Heder: Yeah, but I also think that one that legitimizes the concept is that the movie is not a shiny, polished film. It’s kind of crusty. I think it has good performances, but it feels like an independent film, where some young people worked completely within their means, and weren’t trying to go above and beyond who we were. And I think people see that and realize that, and that made it cool. Like, “Oh, this is an indie film. I like indie films.” I think it allowed regular general audience people to feel like they were touching art, even if they weren’t touching art-art. I think it just excited people that it was accessible to watch, and that anybody could understand it. It’s not deep storytelling, and it’s simple. It’s just about a nerdy kid, and they love the idea that “Oh, nobody knows about this, so I am going to tell my friends about this,” and it was fun to become a part of it. I think if we had premiered our film on YouTube, that would have been it. It would have been only on YouTube, and maybe gotten a little bit of digital time.

HC: Did it surprise you that dry humor played off so well in the mainstream?

Heder: I think it’s just because it was so natural, there’s hardly any music, and it feels like you’re more watching real life. [“Napoleon Dynamite”] is a comedy without jokes. We weren’t writing jokes, it was just weird characters fleshed out, and [people] just liked watching them do things.

HC: What can you say about the short “Peluca,” which inspired what eventually became “Napoleon Dynamite”?

Heder: My recommendation is the short, I love it. That one feels even a little more authentic, because it goes back to the crusty idea, and it’s on 16mm, but I think it represents the world better, everything in that little town. When you’re in a little town, you’re not touching professional things, and everything is DIY, everything is amateur. It feels like one of the students that goes to Napoleon’s school just picked up a camera and shot his buddies. That’s why it feels like it matches more of the style of the story. It’s about the guys in the short having no money, and also the filmmakers have no money. If you shot “Napoleon Dynamite” with a big budget and a big crew, it just wouldn’t make any sense. I love the short for that reason. Plus, my hair was better in the short. We really nailed the perm in that one. I was younger and closer to the actual age of the kid.

It’s like “Nebraska,” you have characters in a small town. I could easily see “Napoleon Dynamite” as a black-and-white film. And I know the way they marketed the film was very colorful, but I still think it would have been a lot of fun as a black-and-white. I was so used to the short that it was weird to see Napoleon in color, and I thought it was wrong. But by the time I did the feature, I had the character down. We explored a couple new emotions for the character, but for the main part he was very much the same.

Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite Photo credit: Joe Arce/StarstruckFoto

HC: Napoleon Dynamite is obviously only a character played by you, but it is someone certainly built from the same physique. How did playing the character allow you to become more comfortable with being yourself?

Heder: Growing up, I had moments where I’d just look in the mirror. I was a pretty happy guy and didn’t have low self-esteem. I didn’t have many girlfriends, but that didn’t bother me. But there were moments I remember growing up, and I would think, “I look like an alien. I look so weird.” But by the time college came, and I started dating more, and by the time I did this film, you get into this actor mode where you don’t care about the fact that he probably cast you because you look dorky. I just thought, “Well, maybe it helped that I had to work to look this way.” I had to get a perm, I had to get glasses, put on a wardrobe, stand in a certain way and breathe, to really put on an outfit. It wasn’t always like that is who I was. I had a lot of the mannerisms, but at the end of the day I felt good that I could go to my status quo and look quite different, and seem quite different. My wife was dating me at the time when I was making the short, and I had the perm, but she looked past that. It was full-on Bradley Cooper in “American Hustle.”

HC: As long as you were able to know you can be apart from the character, you can manage being him.

Heder: Well, only so much of him was taken from myself. Visually I was never as awkward looking as he was, and that’s where we have some real fun. And even the way he acts. Napoleon is socially clueless, and there are so many things he doesn’t get, and by the time I read the script, I was aware of my surroundings. Even in high school I was shy a little bit, but never to that extent. I never felt awkward. Any kind of awkwardness I attribute to my twin brother. We won the “Most Inseparable Couple” award, which usually goes to a guy and a girl.

HC: Do you see yourself collaborating on a film project with “Napoleon Dynamite” director Jared Hess again?

Heder: That’s more on his side. He is definitely the type who definitely doesn’t do a ton of projects, he does his own stuff; he’s hardly ever hired. We worked together for the “Napoleon Dynamite” animated series, which we’re still working on. But on a different film, I’d love to. I think it would be a blast, but we’ll see.

HC: Can you remember the strangest place you’ve heard a “Napoleon Dynamite” reference?

Heder: Did you see “Lone Survivor”? The young soldier (Alexander Ludwig) who wants to be part of the group does the “Napoleon Dynamte” dance; it’s a direct reference to it. And then there was that Spelling Bee, which are always so serious and quiet. But this one kid just randomly, it must have been his plan or his buddies put him up to it, spelled out a word and then said, “Do the chickens have large talons?” He said it so fast and quietly that the judges didn’t know. He was laughing, though.

HC: You are also mentioned in two Kanye West songs – in “N****z in Paris” with a sound clip from “Blades of Glory,” and with a dialogue reference to “Napoleon Dynamite” in his song “Monster” with Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, and Rick Ross. West says, “Whatever I wanna do, gosh!”

Heder: Yeah for [“N****z in Paris”] they had to get our permission for to use [me and Will Ferrell’s] permission to use our voices. But I didn’t know about “Monster.” Wow. I guess he’s a fan.

By Nick Allen
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com