Jon Heder doesn’t think a lot has changed since he broke into the limelight with his awkward and outlandish performance in Napoleon Dynamite.
“I can eat at nicer places, as opposed to Taco Bell everyday,” Heder remarks on a conference call with a perfect deadpan-I think.
We may beg to differ. While Heder certainly hasn’t done any roles that stray too far from his Napoleon Dynamite character-a typecast role that the actor does not regret-he is now going head-to-head with some of Hollywood’s heavyweights, such as Billy Bob Thornton in School for Scoundrels, and most recently Will Ferrell, in the new figure-skating comedy Blades of Glory.
In Blades, Heder and Ferrell play two fierce ice-dancing competitors forced to team up, becoming the first all-male, figure-skating duo. Heder mentions that the competition between him and Ferrell wasn’t strictly onscreen. While he admitted he’s no match for Ferrell’s comedic abilities, Heder loves to rub in how much faster he picked up skating.
“I remember thinking, ‘Alright, Will’s had three extra weeks of training on me, and I could still skate circles around him,'” he bragged.
Off-screen competition may have been the cause of an accident that put the entire film in jeopardy. Heder ended up breaking his ankle while training a little too aggressively.
“I wish I could say I was doing a cool trick,” the actor lamented, “but I wasn’t. I was spinning or at least I was going into a spin. But my body kept spinning, and my foot stayed planted in the ice. I just kind of crumpled and toppled over, and it broke. That kind of messed up the schedule for the film. There were actually a few moments where we thought that maybe it was going to get canned.”
But Heder proved resilient and got back on the ice as soon as he healed in order to complete the film. He joked that he had thoughts about sabotaging Ferrell’s equipment so that he could see what it was like to fall and suffer. However, a broken ankle isn’t the only thing Heder endured on set.
“I think I got a whiff of B.O. once,” Heder commented while describing the up-close-and-personal pairs skating with Ferrell. He prefers not to dwell on the memory, however. “Naturally there was going to be some male musk in the room.”
With all that behind him, Heder has something new to look forward to, in addition to a host of new film projects. His wife is expecting their first child, so Heder, fast approaching the age of 30, is on the brink of something new.
“I’m gearing up for it,” the actor comments on the new arrival. “It amazes me to think what life would be like after. It’s just kind of like having this extended visitor at your house, who’s going to stay with you for most of the rest of your life.”
Blades of Glory opens nationwide this Friday.
