by Aaron Carr

Created on: April 06, 2007   Last Updated: September 19, 2008

Jon Heder is an actor, born in Fort Collins, Colo. and raised in a family of four brothers and one sister. "Napoleon Dynamite" was his first big film, an independently produced satire on the theme of adolescent confusion. The film received a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival.

The movie was a work of art with warm characters whose dispositions were so completely bizarre, so refreshingly original and so powerfully cinematic, they are like no others I have ever seen in a movie, or am likely to see again. Heder played his oddball role to perfection, a hilarious tribute to the comedy genre.

His lines were uniquely adolescent: "Whatever I feel like I want do. Gosh!" "You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bow staff." But, sadly, after "Napoleon Dynamite," things went tumbling downhill for good old Johnny boy, playing roles in both "The Bench Warmers" and "School for Scoundrels," the kind of movies that are better watched through an already heated oven.

With an abrupt slump in his career, staying a country mile away from unprofitable, artistic productions and, instead, attending to the big time Hollywood ones, I prematurely judged Heder, stamping him as an avaricious actor whose sole interest is in green Benjamins and stardom.

I was very wrong. Heder is content, good-humored and at ease. His new comedy, "Blades of Glory," that I did not yet get a chance to see, is a multi-million dollar production, involving the story of two ice skaters (Heder and Will Farrell) who try to make it to the top.

During the phone conference, Heder, mellowed and reflective, said "Yeah, we did have a fun time but, as opposed to like maybe some of the other comedies I've worked on, it was a lot of work." Well, it should be; a sport that requires speed and agility, stamina and endurance, the need to have every inch of your body in the exact right spot, at the exact right time, must be challenging for any normal human being whose name is not Michelle Kwan.

On a question pertaining to his movement from the worldliness of small time, independently made films, to the special effects of more eye gripping and corporate, Hollywood ones, Heder said, "It was different, but it's still work, and you're getting there, and you're still kind of the same thing; you're trying to bring a character to life and having a good time doing it."

Interestingly, Heder mentioned that Speck and Gordon (the film's co-directors)

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