Jon Heder Talks New Comedy Movie Tapawingo, Napoleon Dynamite’s Legacy | Interview

ComingSoon spoke with Napoleon Dynamite and Tapawingo star Jon Heder about his new comedy movie. Heder discussed his role, the talented cast, the legacy of Napoleon Dynamite, and more. Tapawingo is now available via On Demand from Indican Pictures.

“Tapawingo is the story of Nate Skoog, an eccentric 30-year-old oddball, who works a dead-end mailroom job and still lives in his mom’s house. His life takes an unexpected twist when Nate’s boss orders him to pick up his social misfit son, Oswalt, from school. It becomes clear the kid is being bullied, and Nate finally gets the opportunity to do what he’s always wanted: mercenary for hire. He assembles a team of misfit wackadoos to ensure Oswalt’s safety, forming an unconventional security detail. Tapawingo follows their journey as it takes an unexpected turn when they discover that the network of bullies targeting Oswalt wields more power and influence than they initially thought,” says the official synopsis.”

Tyler Treese: Congrats on Tapawingo. I watched it this morning. I thought it was a ton of fun, and I wasn’t too familiar with the director. How was this film pitched to you?

Jon Heder: It was kind of like just the traditional way. He had interest in me. He reached out to my agents, agents got the script, sent it to me, and I like the script. I mean, it’s not always that way, but it’s normally the ideal way. You get a script, you read it, hopefully you like it. Every now and then, you might get a project where you might be like, “Well, okay, you know what, the script could use some work, but I really wanna work with this guy.” Or whatever it is.

In this case, I really like the script, but yeah, you’re right. I never heard of the director. I think it’s a second official film, but he kind of labels it almost as a first-time director.

What about the script really appealed to your sensibilities?

You saw the film, you could probably figure that out [laughs].

I love doing independent films, first of all. Especially these stories about kind of oddball weird characters. I felt like when I read the script, like, you know, you watch the movie now, you watch the trailer and you’re like, “okay, yeah, there’s definitely some similarities and some obvious comparisons to movies like Napoleon Dynamite.”

But when I read the script, I didn’t really feel that. I was like, “okay, yeah, this is an independent film. It’s weird, odd characters living in a small town, but it’s a different story.” It’s a different attitude. There’s a lot more kinetic energy in this one. It was just a different vibe. But I love that. I love anything with an ensemble, a really fun ensemble, really just bizarre characters. You’re not sure where the story’s going or what the character’s motivations are. I like guessing a little bit more than your typical movie.

I definitely got some Napoleon Dynamite vibes while watching, but it never comes across as derivative. Did it ever feel similar while filming? Or how was that experience?

Filming, we were changing things up back and forth. Like certainly there’s definitely moments where you’re like, okay, the way the shot, the locked off camera shots, looking directly at the camera, there’s obviously a lot of Napoleon, a lot of Wes Anderson kind of takes that people will say.

But it’s almost become its own film language now that you’re like, “okay, I get it.” It was a lot of very intricate framing. Like, “okay, this is the shot. This is exactly where this goes.” So it wasn’t like a loosey goosey kinda thing, [just] pick up the camera, let’s shoot. It was very much like, it took a while to shoot some of these things. It’s like, “I want this here and I want this here, and I want it to be exactly like this.”

So yeah, there’s definitely some vibes, but again, I felt like our characters are different. There’s different motivations, different things happening, and so I felt safe that way.

You’re rocking a pretty sweet mullet in this film, and you look great in the gi later on. How was it adding a visual flair to the character and making him recognizable?

It was great. Every time I approach any project, how they look and how they walk and move and their hair, their wardrobe, their makeup, all that stuff, comes together and works together with how I portray the character. I think [it’s] just as important with your acting and your voice and all these things are just as important.

Especially with the comedy, you’re like, “Let’s have fun. Let’s do something a little bit more extreme, something a little bit more out there, but also kind of in the realm of what we would believe.” And I loved, I was like, “Oh, I’ve gotta do a mullet at some point in my career. I gotta do a mullet.” So I was very excited. I love that mullet so much so that I kind of adopted it for a while, took it home and cradled it and nursed it, and it was like an unwelcome exchange student in our house for like two years, that they’re like, “Dude, is this all right? They’ve stayed their stay, when are they gonna take off?” I’m like, “No, no, no, no. I love it. Come on, let me morph it a little bit more.”

This was filmed a few years back, and since then, you and Billy Zane did another film together, Waltzing With Brando, which is just a wild transformation from him in that film. What was it like getting to work with Billy in these two very different capacities, where you guys have a fight scene in this and then a more serious film?

It was great because I had signed on to do Waltzing With Brando first. So I knew I was gonna work with him, and then that was kind of put on hold, and then this project came around, and it was ready to go.

The director, I remember, even like right before shooting it, he was like, “Yeah, we’re trying to cast the rest. and I got Billy Zane to play one of our characters.” I was like, “Oh, that’s funny. I’m supposed to work with him on another film that hopefully we’ll do, and we’ll see.”

So when I worked with Billy, yeah, the first time was on Tapawingo, and it was pretty brief. He was only there for like two days, and so I only got a little bit of that. I think with anybody, but especially in a working relationship, where the first couple of days you’re just getting to know this person, so you don’t know all the ins and outs.

Then by the time we shot Waltzing with Brando, that’s when I really kind of got into bed with him and really started to feel like, “Okay, this is who he is, and this is.” It was great. So I’m glad Tapawingo is kinda like a precursor to that, but it was great because with the little bit of time he had there, we got to do some fun stuff. A good pathetic fight scene, I’ll put on my end, but great for the film.

Gina Gershon is so much fun in this film. She’s a total hot mess in it. You two share some really great scenes. How is it just playing off her energy? Because she gets to really go all out here.

It was great. And she was like, she was all in on making this a fun, weird [experience of] everybody involved getting in. “Okay, these are kind of some bizarro characters. Let’s see what we can do to turn it to 11 and have some fun.”

She was great. I mean, she came in like most of the wardrobe, most of her look was kind of her idea. Yet she doesn’t play crazy. She is kind of a little subtle and subdued. It worked great because my character’s kind of this also subtle and subdued, kinda like a rock and roller crustball kind of guy. She was just lovely, very lovely to work with.

The film is shot in central Virginia, which isn’t usually a hotbed for filmmaking. I was reading some local news stories around when the film was shooting, and people were just really chuffed at a film being shot there, and we’re excited about it. So what stood out about shooting in central Virginia?

Oh, I loved it.

I remember thinking, oh gosh, ’cause we shot it right in like kind of the middle of the summer, and I was telling my wife, I was like, “Oh, I gotta go to Virginia. It’s gonna be sweltering and hot and humid.” I got there, and yes, we had some moments, but it was also a record high back where I live that summer, so I got to avoid the really bad too.

So it wasn’t so bad from my end. I was like, “Oh, this is nice.” I loved it because it’s such a different vibe. I live on the West Coast. Going to Virginia, what I loved was like, there’s so much history there and so many historical sites just surrounding, and I would be like, on my few days off or the little time, like before shooting, I’d go running, I would go all to all these old battlefields and exercise and go running and just kind of enjoy that kind of vibe and go and do tours.

We went to historic sites. Me and a lot of the cast, we went rafting down the James River right out of Richmond. We got to hang around in Jamestown. I went biking a lot. It was beautiful. It was great. You just get a different vibe. We kept joking that my character has a mullet and a mustache in the film and has very kind of seventies, eighties-inspired clothes. But then, when I put on my regular clothes on my days off, we’d go into downtown Richmond and hang out. I was like, “You guys notice that I kind of blend in here.” Everybody’s like, “Yeah, there’s a vibe here in Richmond that kind of has this people wearing mullets and mustaches is not a weird thing.” I was like, “All right, okay. This is cool.”

The great Diane Keaton recently passed away, and you two starred in Mama’s Boy Together. What are your memories of just working with Diane? That’s such a loss to the acting community.

It was awful. I mean, it was awful to lose her. She was wonderful. It was a dream come true to be able to work with her, like doing this movie when I signed on Mama’s Boy… I mean, this was almost 20 years ago. Knowing she was a part of that, I mean… she was a legend. She was a legend. So it was just such a treat, such an honor, such an experience to work with her and see her in her element. I mean, she’s just like Diane Keaton eating it up all over the place, and I’m like, there on set. She was so sweet and wonderful and professional, and she gave me great advice. And she placed my mom in it.

So there was a very much a kind of motherly relationship there. So, it was awful to see her passing and just… I mean, truly, it’s weird still. I don’t deal with a lot of… luckily, you know, knock on wood, I have not had to deal with a lot of loss in my life. So to have some co-stars now start to leave us… it’s a hard thing. She was very special, and has a very special place in my heart.

Last year was the anniversary of Napoleon Dynamite. I got to see you and Efren Ramirez do a screening of it in Pittsburgh. How’s it been just really embracing the fandom where you’re touring with the film for its anniversary? A lot of actors, when they’re primarily known for one thing, can kind of get cagey about it. But we’ve seen both of you guys really embrace Napoleon and its legacy. How has it been just fully embracing it?

I love it. I’m so proud of it, you know, and it feels special to say like… I mean, it was the first project I ever did, first thing to come out of the gate. So, there’s a lot of what we brought to it and being part of the production of this. Knowing all the guys. Jared was the writer, director, the producers, we were all buddies at college. We were in college while we did it. So it was very personal. It’s the kind of movie I would make. It’s the kind of movie I would watch. And so it, you know, that made it a lot easier to embrace it.

That’s why we embrace it. I say we because I know the rest of the actors, everybody else involved, loved it. We’ve seen the joy and the happiness is brought to so many people that it just doubles our love for the films. Well, we loved it, and now to see other people enjoying it, only you just quantifies our love for it exponentially.

Like now we feel like we are more allowed to go out there and continue sharing it because we know there’s always new generations. I don’t mean to make it sound like multiple, only one generation has essentially passed since the movie came out. But there’s always new audiences being introduced to it, and that’s kind of what we’re trying to do: introduce it to new audiences while giving homage to the original audience members who were pioneers with us, who helped make it such a popular movie.

I got a kick out of Thelma the Unicorn last year since you and Jared got to reunite through that. Are you guys looking to maybe reunite in the future for another live-action project?

I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure it will happen again, but we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.

It’s been almost 20 years since The Benchwarmers came out, and that film definitely has its fan base, and there are some real quotable lines. How do you kinda look back on filming that project?

It was just one of the funniest films I’ve worked on.

So what I always tell people, I was like, here’s a movie… I had a couple of those movies where, because the work was easy, it allowed us time, and we were able to really just truly enjoy, truly enjoy the experience of making the movie. Most actors are always working on their craft, but we kinda had these characters figured out before everything else. Everybody was just, you know… it was very much written to the people. David Spade’s part was written for him. And Nick Swardson, who co-wrote the film was, you know, he knew everybody’s voices. So we had our characters down. We weren’t have to be good at baseball. We didn’t have to train, we didn’t have to do all those kinds of things, and we’d be on set.

Because it’s a big studio film, there was a lot of time like, “Oh, we’re setting up the next shot. It was gonna take a while. We have a huge crew, so we just would, while filming, we had fun, but then while we’d be in between scenes, we’d just hang out, shoot the breeze, mess around.” Sometimes we’d play a little baseball, sometimes we’d play a little hacky sack. Sometimes we would just, we would just, like… it was beautiful weather. It was so much fun.

It was also amazing for me because here are all these comedy legends. You have David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Adam Sandler, and then all their guests that they brought into this project. Again, I feel like, “What am I doing here? I’m unworthy. This is incredible.” Like, I got to meet so many incredible people, and it was a blast. I loved it.

Rob Schneider said that he and David Spade had a rift before doing that film. That’s kind of why Sandler wanted them to do that together, and that really repaired their friendship. It sounds like it wasn’t even noticeable to you.

Oh, no, I didn’t. I mean, I had no idea. No, it was great. We loved it. We had a blast.

Source: Comingsoon.net