'Napoleon's' Hess Enters the Ring

Jared Hess sounds like the most ordinary, average guy on planet Earth.

During a telephone conversation, the writer-director happily mentions his wife and two children and the fact that he goes to church every Sunday. The former Idaho resident also says he lives in Salt Lake City as opposed to Hollywood because "we're really close to Idaho and near the grandparents, and it's good to be around family." He explains all this in the same tone he adopts when answering almost every question a reporter poses: pleasant, polite and -- really, there is no better word for it -- normal.

Yet this perfectly regular guy is responsible for conceiving one of the most eccentric movie characters in recent memory: a gawky teenager who claims to own a mean set of nunchucks, refers to his grandmother's pet llama as a "fat lard" and stores Tater Tots in his pants pockets. Yes, Jared Hess invented Napoleon Dynamite.

" 'Napoleon' was such a small film that I didn't know if it would ever see the light of day," says Hess, 26. "Everything that happened with it was such a complete surprise to me."

He wasn't the only one surprised by the offbeat indie film's success. Made for roughly $400,000, "Dynamite" emerged as the sleeper hit of summer 2004, eventually earning $44 million in North America alone. And that doesn't even account for the piles upon piles of "Dynamite" merchandise -- from DVDs to "Vote for Pedro" T-shirts to talking pens that say "Freakin' idiot!" in Napoleon's exasperated mumble -- that has flooded the marketplace since the movie's release.

Naturally, the "Napoleon" phenomenon put the Brigham Young University film school grad on Hollywood's radar. And that led to his second feature, "Nacho Libre" (see review on Page 32) a comedy he co-wrote and directed that focuses on another unconventional protagonist. This time the hero is a Mexican monastery cook (played by Jack Black) who secretly moonlights as a luchador -- a wrestler -- to raise money so he can feed better food to the orphans. Although the premise is, believe it or not, based on the true story of actual luchador Fray Tormenta, Hess, his wife, Jerusha (who also collaborated with her husband on the "Dynamite" script), and fellow scribe Mike White ("School of Rock") put their own spin on this tale of sleeper holds and spiritual redemption.

Already a huge fan of lucha libre , the style of no-holds-barred Mexican wrestling in which competitors wear masks and regularly take the action into the audience, Hess immediately was drawn to the project.

"Lucha libre is something you have to experience live," he says, getting giddy at the mere thought of the sport. "It's the most outrageous, politically incorrect thing, and it's so much fun. . . . Man, if you're sitting on the first three rows around the ring, you'd better be prepared to get body slammed by a guy getting tossed out."

"Nacho Libre," which features plenty of body slams, gave Hess the opportunity to work on his first major studio production, an experience that initially felt overwhelming.

"On 'Dynamite,' I think we had a crew of about 20 people, who were largely my friends from college. This [crew] was at least 10 times the size of that," he says.

Hess, a practicing Mormon, avoids the foul language that peppers so many mainstream movies, particularly comedies aimed at younger audiences. Like "Napoleon," "Nacho" is rated PG, and, though it contains cartoonish violence, not a single dirty word is uttered.

When asked whether any Hollywood players ever ask about his faith, Hess says: "Yeah, religion comes up all the time. It's totally cool. People have a lot of questions, and I think there are a lot of misconceptions [about Mormons] so I think it's been good. To a lot of people, I'm the only Mormon they know."

After the past year and a half of hard work, a period Hess describes as "100 percent 'Nacho,' " the "Dynamite" daddy is eager to spend some quality time with his family. In the fall, he plans to get back to writing and begin work on "an original idea," though he won't share specifics.

Could it possibly be a sequel to "Napoleon Dynamite"? The answer, Uncle Rico lovers, appears to be no.

"Just right now, I've creatively moved on to other things," Hess says. "Some of the fans I'm sure would love to see the further adventures of Napoleon. I get asked that a lot."