Jon Heder

Jon Heder
Heder at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con International
Born	Jonathan Joseph Heder (1977-10-26) October 26, 1977 Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, filmmaker
Years active	2000–present
Religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Spouse(s)	Kirsten Bales (2002-present; 2 children)

Jonathan Joseph "Jon" Heder (born October 26, 1977)^[1] is an American actor and filmmaker. His feature film debut came in 2004 as the title character of the comedy film Napoleon Dynamite. He has also acted in the films The Benchwarmers, School for Scoundrels, Blades of Glory, Mama's Boy, and When in Rome, and provided voice talents in the animated films Monster House and Surf's Up, as well as the Napoleon Dynamite animated series.

Early life

Heder was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, the son of Helen (née Brammer) and Dr. James Heder, a practicing physician. He has an identical twin brother,^[2] Dan, as well as an older sister and brother, Rachel and Doug, and two younger brothers, Adam and Matt. Heder is the nephew by marriage of former NFL running back and current WCAU sportscaster, Vai Sikahema.^[3] Heder is of part Swedish descent.^[4] Heder and his parents moved to Salem, Oregon, when he was 2 years old.^[5] He attended Walker Middle School in Salem and graduated from South Salem High School in 1996,^[5] where he was on the swim team and was a member of the Drama Association.

A 2002 alumnus of Brigham Young University, Heder worked on the short CGI animated film "Pet Shop", written by Logan Deans, which earned a non-traditional animation student Emmy in 2005. After his movie career took off, he did not return to complete the work he started on the short, although his name does appear in the credits. Also, while attending BYU he befriended Jared Hess and starred in Hess' short film Peluca, which was later expanded into Napoleon Dynamite. Peluca received rave reviews on the BYU campus after showing at a few college and local film festivals and competitions.

Career

Napoleon Dynamite, filmed in Preston, Idaho, earned $44.5 million at the box office,^[6] more revenue than almost any other Sundance movie. ^{[citation needed]} For his appearance, Heder was paid just $1,000.^[7] In June 2005, Heder received the MTV Movie Award for Best Musical Performance and Breakthrough Male Performance for the role. On 8 October 2005, he hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guest Ashlee Simpson. After his success with Napoleon Dynamite, Heder and his film co-star Efren Ramirez filmed a series of commercials to promote the 2005 Utah State Fair. They appear as their characters from Napoleon Dynamite; in at least one commercial, they are shown with the FFA medals that they won in the context of the movie. They also reprised their roles in a self-parody sketch called "Napoleon Bonamite" on the animated series Robot Chicken.

Heder appeared in the film The Sasquatch Gang. He had a supporting role as a clerk in a new age bookstore in the romantic comedy Just Like Heaven. Heder also appeared with Rob Schneider and David Spade in producer Adam Sandler's The Benchwarmers (2006), a comedy about three grown men making up for lost chances by creating their own Little League baseball team. He was the voice of the character Skull in the animated film Monster House, and starred in the comedy School for Scoundrels, opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Jacinda Barrett. With the exception of the Academy Award-nominee Monster House, Heder's post-Dynamite movies were widely panned^{[citation needed]} and he risked becoming a one-hit wonder until he co-starred in 2007 with Will Ferrell in the well-received Blades of Glory (2007). Like many of Heder's films, Blades of Glory is an absurd, slapstick caricature, in this case revolving around male figure skaters who must team up in a pairs competition.

Heder's second turn at voice acting came in 2007 when he voiced the character of Chicken Joe, a surfing chicken, in the animated film Surf's Up. His first foray into web television was in the 2008 web series Woke Up Dead starring and produced by Heder.^[8] Woke Up Dead is a web-based, live-action sci-fi comedy thriller about Drex, a twenty-something USC student who wakes up underwater in the bathtub one morning and suspects that he might be dead.

Jon and his twin brother Dan star together as villains in the fourth installment of the popular internet martial arts comedy series Sockbaby. Heder's performance in When in Rome was praised by New York Times critic A. O. Scott: "Jon Heder as a goofy street magician is the funniest of the bunch."^[9] In 2012 Heder returned to the role that made him famous by supplying the voice of Napoleon Dynamite in the Fox Network animated series, Napoleon Dynamite, which debuted in January of that year.

In 2013, Heder appeared in the music video for "On Top of the World" with numerous other Utah based actors and musicians.

Personal life

Heder lives with his wife Kirsten Heder in Los Angeles, California. The two have been married since 2002. The couple have a daughter and a son, born in 2007 and 2009, respectively.

Heder is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served an LDS mission in Japan, for which he learned to speak Japanese. He, his brothers and father are Scouting enthusiasts with Heder and several of his brothers becoming Eagle Scouts.^[10] He currently serves as a Scoutmaster.^[10]

Jon and Dan

Jon stated during an appearance on Late Show with David Letterman that he and his identical twin, Dan, think alike and, as children, often finished each other's sentences. When Letterman asked him whether being an identical twin is a good experience, Jon replied that it is mostly good and that as children "we caused a lot of trouble by pretending to be the other, the memories still give me a good chuckle." ^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

Film

Television

Web

Video games

References

External links

• Jon Heder at the Internet Movie Database
• One of Jon Heder's first projects
• Snopes article debunking the myth of his death
• Video and transcript of an interview with Heder
• Jon Heder on The Hour