Napoleon Dynamite (Cast) – An Xperience Interview

Napoleon Dynamite (Cast – Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez and Jon Gries) – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.

JH: You better flush before we start talking.

RRX: Yes, hello, everyone. Hope everyone’s doing well.

JH: Doing great.

RRX: It’s really awesome that you guys are touring around and showing the movie, but you’re actually there with the fans watching as well. I think the movie itself brings families and people together to laugh. How’s it feel?

JH: It feels good, dude. It feels good!

RRX: It’s got to.

JH: Alright, let’s break it down. When I was shooting this, I honestly didn’t think of this as a family film, weirdly enough. I didn’t think of it as a monetary kind of a Hollywood movie; it felt like a student project we were making. It was a glorified version of the short film that I had shot a year and a half prior to this. I didn’t really think of how it will fit in with the usual industry of release dates, audiences, and what kind of money it’s gonna make. That’s not how I viewed this film. When we made it, it was an independent film. We were making this movie, and it’s weird; it might be in a few film festivals. It’s not that I doubted it. I just didn’t have that scope or imagination at that point of what it could be. It wasn’t until it got into Sundance and was bought by Fox Searchlight … once they put it in theaters and marketed it, it turned it into one of those kind of movies. Then it was like … oh wow, this has legs! And then … yeah, you saw families of all ages going to see it and telling us like … oh my gosh, this is our favorite family film. Then it just became that in my eyes. It took a while to see it turning and go through the chrysalis … in turn exit the chrysalis, you know?

ER: People are not just relating to characters like Napoleon, but they relate to characters like Pedro, Uncle Rico, Rex Kwon Do, or Summer Wheatly because they could see themselves with these characters, right? There’s no special effect, kinda just getting through life. And so, people find something to connect to with these characters, and I think that’s fine.

RRX: No, you’re right, they definitely do connect. Honestly, when I went to school, it seemed like there was a student who resembled every character in the movie.

JH: One student or a handful of students?

RRX: A handful of students.

JH: Oh, okay. I was like … one student, that’s very sad and interesting.

RRX: I had a classmate who very much was the Napoleon Dynamite of our school. Of course, the DARE program taught him that he could sniff glue, but that’s another story.

JH: My gosh.

RRX: But no, the film really brought people together. It was my daughter’s favorite movie growing up. I just talked to my son last night, he’s 26 years old now, but he said when he went to his babysitter’s house, he always watched “Napoleon Dynamite” and it was something for him to look forward to after school. At the same time, I loved it too. One of my favorites and one of the few comedies that I can re-watch, and I still laugh.

JG: We’ve definitely been surprised, and I agree with Jon (Heder). I never thought this was a family film when we were doing it. I just thought it was an edgy independent film. Particularly this character, Napoleon, had never really been addressed before, you know? At the same time, we all knew it was a comedy, but … I thought maybe it’s gonna reach out to some indie audiences and just be a cool, hip, little, fun film. It just kind of broke through and had a complete … as Jon said, a chrysalis, it morphed into something completely unexpected; I think for all of us. Now we’ve gotten to the point where it’s kind of a legacy.

We’re meeting people that learned it from family members who have long passed because it’s 21 years old, let’s say from a grandfather or grandmother, right? When they get together and watch this film, it’s as if they’re going back in time to when they first saw it. They’re remembering. It’s like when you remember a summer song from your high school years, I always say a summer song is a more memorable song.

RRX: Exactly. If there were a sequel today, where would your characters be in that sequel?

JH: Look, if there was a sequel and they wanna get audiences, it would probably be a little bit brighter than what it would be in real life. What’s fun about Napoleon is, as you know … as outlandish as these characters seemed, everything felt very grounded. These are real characters that people truly believe. As colorful as they seem, I think that’s why people gravitated towards them, because they also felt extremely grounded and realistic. People thought we were really like that when the movie came out, they thought it was almost like a documentary. If we’re going down that pathway, then I’d say, in a real-time sequel, it wouldn’t be the most ideal situation. Napoleon was nice and sweet when he was young, but when he’s older and as an adult, he’s trying to work a couple jobs to pay for these kids from a failed marriage or failed relationship. He’s still trying to get some sweet skills and hasn’t quite nailed that yet. Yeah, it’s rough for Napoleon.

RRX: Still trying to perfect those skills; I’m sure he’s mastered the nunchucks by now. These days, you’ve got all these movies that are coming that have changed the main character roles because they’re in the public domain. Now they’ve got movies with a murderous Winnie the Pooh and Popeye. Hopefully, when your characters are in the public domain, they don’t create a murderous Napoleon Dynamite, which would be kind of be wild.

ER: Is that what you want to see? I don’t know if that’s a family movie.

JG: I don’t think we have to worry about our rights going public domain for quite some time.

RRX: Good, it’s far in the future before we’ll see that.

JH: I picture a murderous Napoleon before I picture a murderous Winnie the Pooh.

JG: Napoleon with a shotgun, a freaking 12 gauge.

JH: What did you use to kill your victims? A flipping 12 gauge, what do you think?

(All Laugh)

ER: What a way to kill dreams. Oh my God, that just kills me. Imagine Napoleon as Freddy Krueger.

RRX: I’m telling you, there could be something there.

JG: It’s very wrong altogether, but I kind of love it.

ER: I would say Pedro would probably run for city councilman, and he’d have a bakery with his wife, Summer Sánchez.

RRX: Of course. Well, I’m very much looking forward to your event, “Napoleon Dynamite Live! 20th Anniversary Celebration” at UPAC in Kingston on September 21st.

ER: One thing about the shows that we do is that we really connect to the audience. The audience dresses up as the characters, but we’re all big fans of the movie itself. The show is very entertaining, and we’re all there together. We’ll have a piñata, a tether ball, and a time machine. It’s interactive with all family members. People tend to go up on stage for so many different reasons; it’s a really fun show.

RRX: I always like to wrap it up with any messages or words of wisdom that you’d like to put out there for the people.

ER: The words of wisdom are … come on down and you know … all your wildest dreams will come true.

JH: Just listen to your heart.

More from Rob Smittix…