This spring the University of Central Arkansas became one of the first universities in the nation to nab a sweet appearance by Jon Heder, star of the new cult classic film ?Napoleon Dynamite.?
More than 4,000 UCA students and movie fans received free tickets to two sold-out shows at Reynolds Performance Hall on March 21. Hundreds of students and fans donned t-shirts with iron-on images related to the movie including ?Vote for Pedro? and Heder?s original drawing of a lion/tiger mix animal dubbed a ?liger.?
Throughout the auditorium, guests were heard lacing their conversations with Napoleon-isms such as ?Sweet!? and ?Lucky!?
Even UCA President Lu Hardin couldn?t help himself, joking that the university would change it?s slogan to ?UCA ? Our student have skills.?
After a review of several clips from the movie, many of which the audience recited, Heder took a seat in a plush beige chair at the center of stage.
The gangly 20-something former Brigham Young University student seemed bewildered by his newfound fame as he looked out to a crowd of several thousand fans. After telling a little about himself, the actor opened the floor for a question-and-answer session.
The Salem, Ore. native said he and his identical twin brother were ?into art and drawing.? He knew when he went to college that he wanted to do something creative and at BYU he enrolled in the film program.
While he did some acting on the side, his main interest ? and major ? was computer animation. In fact, if the movie hadn?t been such a success, he figures he would have finished the last two classes he needs for his degree and would probably be working in the computer animation industry.
Heder got involved with ?Napoleon Dynamite? through college friend, Jared Hess, who wrote and directed the movie. In 2002, the duo made a short-film called ?Peluca,? which was the seed for ?Napoleon Dynamite.?
In 2003, Hess asked Heder to star in a feature-length film called ?Napoleon Dynamite.? The movie was shot in Preston, Idaho, Hess? hometown, in just 22 days with a $400,000 budget.
The film was accepted into the Sundance Film Festival where it got rave reviews ? and several offers from distributors. Fox Searchlight bought the film and released it to theatres in mid-2004, with the DVD being released late in the year.
