Jonathan Joseph "Jon" Heder 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 and Dr. James Heder, a practicing physician. He has an identical twin brother,
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. Heder is of part Swedish descent. Heder and his parents moved
to Salem, Oregon, when he was 2 years old. He attended Walker Middle School in Salem
and graduated from South Salem High School in 1996, 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, more
revenue than almost any other Sundance movie. For his appearance, Heder was paid just $1,000.
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, 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 and he risked becoming a one-hit wonder until he co-starred in 2007
with Will Ferrell in the well-received Blades of Glory. 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. 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." 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, and in 2014
he appeared in the music video for the Chromeo song "Old 45s".
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. He currently serves as a Scoutmaster. 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