The gathering bore all the electric excitement of a political rally — a packed room, with the masses expressing their support in excited snatches of conversation, peppered with the guests of honor’s most famous nuggets of wisdom.
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In preparation, they wore their favorite sayings on their chests — literally — with bright slogan-bearing T-shirts. They came armed with their best, most probing questions. And, of course …
“I voted for Pedro!”
The unseen Lynn University student who yelled that cry didn’t actually cast a ballot for mumbling student Pedro Sanchez in the hotly contested race for class president at Idaho’s Preston High School, because Pedro doesn’t actually exist.
But Efren Ramirez, the actor who played him in runaway cult hit “Napoleon Dynamite,” does. And last week, along with co-star Aaron Ruell, he absorbed the catchphrase-yelling, quote-savvy adoration of the students at the Boca Raton university, whose shirts read “I Voted For Pedro” and “I Got Some Tots.”
Popular with young crowd
Filmmakers Jared and Jerusha Hess’ budgeted tale of an awkward but weirdly heroic Idaho high school student, a hit at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, has become phenomenally popular, particularly with viewers in their teens and early 20s who thrilled to its dry, silly humor, independent film sensibilities, oddball characters and its championing of Ronald McDonald-haired, sarcastic, Tater Tots-loving nerd Napoleon (Jon Heder).
And that’s why Ramirez and Ruell, who played Internet-dating dork Kip, were asked to appear during the school’s Spring Fling activities.
“It’s changed the idea of cliques in movies. In [other] movies, they idolized the football players,” said Kelly Friedrich, 21, a senior and member of the Knight Activities Team or KAT, which organized the Spring Fling week.
“But now, kids want to be like Napoleon Dynamite,” agreed KAT colleague and freshman Vanessa Ott, 20.
Even now-staunch fans such as Friedrich, who confesses to watching the movie “two or three times a week,” admit that they didn’t immediately get its subtly comic plot or monotone line readings — “It’s so stupid it’s funny,” she said. And they’re in good company.
“I read the script and went `Huh?”‘ said Ramirez. “I was reading for “The Alamo” and for this, and it was my luck getting [Napoleon”] It’s been so amazing. The characters are so unique, so odd.”
Ruell said that even after the film was accepted at Sundance, no one in the cast or crew could have foreseen its eventual popularity.
“We thought we had done something funny and unique,” said Ruell, who went to Brigham Young University with director Jared Hess. “But when they showed the slow-motion shot of [Napoleon] in his brown suit, everyone went crazy.”
Slide show, signatures
He and Ramirez led a slide show of shots from the set taken by Ruell. They also signed many copies of the “Napoleon” DVD and answered the crowd’s burning questions about everything from Kip’s origins to whether the cast ever cracked up during filming (no, but the crew did).
They also calmly dealt with some of the overzealous fans who didn’t have questions but just wanted to quote back funny lines from the movie, who asked what it was like to work with Napoleon (“His name’s Jon,” Ruell politely answered).
It was clear that even in the midst of the film’s popularity, neither actor knows quite what to make of all of the devotion. But they’re enjoying the frenzy.
“We made this little movie, and then everyone’s wearing `Got Some Tots’ T-shirts,” Ramirez noted. “It’s been a wild ride.”