 |
Jared Hess "The characters of Napoleon Dynamite are inspired largely from people I grew up with in Idaho and especially from my five younger brothers and friends at school," explains Jared Hess, the co-writer and director of this year's most unique movie. "I basically set out to tell the story of the kind of young people who have never really had their stories told - people like that nerdy kid who sat next to you in math drawing mythical animals, the people you never talked to or really got to know."
Jared Hess is from Preston, Idaho, the location for Napoleon Dynamite and studied film at Brigham Young University where he met his wife Jerusha, who was co-writer and costume designer on the movie. We began by asking Jared how he was enjoying the fantastic reviews Napoleon Dynamite is getting on this side of the Atlantic. "It's very flattering!" He exclaimed...
PIXELSURGEON: Did you think your movie would translate overseas?
Ah, I definitely had my doubts about it. The film is very rural American, and you always wonder how people will respond to it or embrace it. But the response to it has been great.
The movie originated with a short movie called Peluca, which also featured Jon Heder as a supernerd. How did that movie originate and how close is it to Napoleon Dynamite?
Peluca was a short movie I did at film school, kind of to showcase what I wanted to do with the feature film. And we shot for around $500 on black and white 16mm. At the time I was casting the short film, I just couldn't find anybody I felt was genuine enough to play the main character, and then I remembered Jon Heder from one of my film classes, struck up a conversation with him about the character, what i wanted to do and we just hit it off right away. He understood the character very well and was able to be very authentic and bring him to life. Jon basically plays the same character in the short as he does in the feature. The short's nine minutes long, and it's more of a day in the life of the main character, and from there it just kind of grew.
Will we end up seeing Peluca on DVD?
Yeah, I think it's on the DVD.
A feature of Napoleon Dynamite are the long shots which some reviewers have said give the movie an "epic" feel. What was your reasoning behind those shots?
When the camera's not moving you pay attention to little details and nuances that your subjects bring to life. For me, it seemed to accommodates quite well the comedy and the physical details we were trying to capture...
You and your wife wrote the movie; give me a snapshot of what that was like. Was there plenty of acting out scenes, goofing around and trying to make each other laugh?
Yeah, for me it's very important for me when I'm writing to know how the characters sound, what they're wearing... My wife, she's the female voice in the film, she was Deb. Creatively, we're very very different people, and it was difficult at times writing with her, but when you have a writing partner you tend to settle less for mediocrity and kind of raise the bar a little bit in that you have someone to check your ideas with. It was great and we'll continue writing together.
Where did all those characters come from?
Napoleon really is a composite, myself and my younger brothers. Some of the things he says and does are almost direct things that happened to us when we were growing up. My brother did ring me up and ask me to bring him his chapstick, just weird, crazy stuff like that. When my mom saw the movie she came up to me afterwards and she was like, "well, that was a lot of embarrassing family material!"
What did the actors bring to their roles? Did they all get the movie's vibe from the script or was it once they'd finished in Wardrobe?
All the actors and people involved really responded to the script. We couldn't offer them much at the time... Everybody really had their hearts in what they were doing and really loved the characters. But when everybody arrived in Idaho and were doing their wardrobe fitting everything really came to life for them. It was a lot easier for them to become the character, wearing what they were wearing and having their hair done and being on location. It all just came together.
I read an interview with Jon Heder, where he said that he didn't think he'd ever get another role as good as Napoleon Dynamite. Do you think you've ruined his career?
[Laughs] He's not giving himself enough credit there, he's a very talented young man. I think with the right director and the right script he's going to do some very exciting things.
Did know that Jon had those kind of smooth moves for the dance scene? What would you have done if Jon couldn't dance at all?
[Laughs] It's funny, when we were making the short film, I had a little bit of film left after we'd finished shooting and Jon was still dressed in character. I took him out to a dirt road, I turned on the radio in my car and I said "Jon, just dance" and he boogied down and it was the strangest thing. I mean, man, dressed like that and still able to shake it down so well, I thought I have to have a scene in the feature that showcases this... so I realised it would definitely end with him kinda breaking it down.
In real life Jon looks nothing like his character; but I believe he had to get a perm for his role... wouldn't the budget stretch to a wig for the poor guy?
You know, it was my wife's idea to give him a perm. He looks very fashionable and very well dressed and we wanted to make sure he didn't just look like Jon Heder playing a jerk, but that he became the character. So it was decided early on to give him a perm. Later on we got a wig for the pick-ups.
Pablo is a hugely funny character, mostly for his bizarre inertia. Is it true when you were casting Efren Ramirez he was too hyperactive and you told him to do nothing?
[Laughs] When he came to the audition he was more in character than anyone else I'd seen and he took his role very very seriously. He stayed in character for much of the shooting, even when the cameras weren't rolling...
That must have been very strange...
It did get annoying at times, but he was fantastic and a joy to work with: someone who takes their role that seriously...!
Although set in the present day, Preston seems curiously stuck in the 80s; tell us about that...
Right. What the characters wear was an important part of their world. I would always get hand-me-down clothes from my cousins and stuff like that when I was growing up. Things seemed to be based around function than actual style, and a lot of the music in the film has an 80s synth pop vibe to it. Some of the tunes were played at my senior prom in 1997, so people were still digging those tunes then, so for me it seemed very normal and natural for that world.
Is it true that you were unaware of Elvis Costello's usage of the name Napoleon Dynamite until after the movie?
That's kind of a funny story because I had no idea about the Napoleon Dynamite/Elvis Costello connection when we were writing, and on the second to last day of shooting one of the extras on the set goes, so is this movie based on the Elvis Costello alias or something and we were like whaddya talking about? Elvis Costello uses that as an alias on one of his albums, and I was like you gotta be kidding me? But that night I looked it up and sure enough, Napoleon Dynamite was the name of one of his albums from the 80s or something, which I had no idea because I based the character's name on a guy I met in Chicago whose name was Napoleon Dynamite.
It was too late to turn back and I most likely would have changed the name of the movie had I known there was an Elvis Costello connection. But anyway, pure coincidence!
And is it true that the wedding scene added as an epilogue cost half of what the entire production had cost?
That's totally correct. When we started out people were getting paid very little or in some cases nothing at all... The studio, before they released it in paying theatres had free word of mouth screenings in the major US cities and they were thinking how they could get people to pay to see it again, so they did what they did with 28 Days Later which was to add an alternate ending...
Did that come from the studio?
Totally from them. I felt absolutely fine about how the film ended and didn't want to do it all, but they know a lot more about marketing than I do and if they think it'll jump the film a little bit then I could definitely do it.
There seems to an alternative wave of modern directors coming from the US who seem to be interested in the quirky side of life: The Coens, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Todd Solondz, Alexander Payne, Spike Jonze, David O Russell, Terry Zwigoff and now you... is this a movement I can see forming?
Right, yeah, I think people really want to see something new and original and fresh and some of the film makers that you just mentioned so offer that. They have a different twist on life and the film makers are tired of the kind of movies that are cranked out of Hollywood every year. I'm always looking forward to Spike Jonze's next thing.
What's next for you? Will we see any more adventures from Napoleon?
I have two different projects that I'm developing right now. I don't have to shake down the family for money, so I'm happy about that.
|
