Interview with Jared Hess on Gentlemen Broncos
The Man Behind Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre Strikes Again
Nov 3, 2009
Gentlemen Broncos is a tale of a sci-fi writer who steals a novel called Yeast Lords from an aspiring 15 year old writer and passes it off as his own, unaware that the boy’s making a movie version. But it has that Hess stamp, an acquired taste for many. His approach to filmmaking is simple – he doesn’t telegraph the laughs, and trusts audiences to navigate his wacky alternative universe. Reaction to the film, now in limited release, is strongly polarised, sure to confound lovers of conventional comedy.
Hess assembled stars willing to do just about anything for a laugh. Sam Rockwell plays a gay southern, stag riding, sci-fi hero who can knock out enemy Cyclops Bears with carefully jettisoned body fluids. The young male lead Michael Angarano, wears women’s nighties and blouses as normal attire. Jennifer Coolidge, Hector Jimenez, Jemaine Clement, and Mike White are seemingly ridiculous, pathetic characters but they create their own comic universe with a lot of heart. It’s odd stuff.
AB – Your background players seem to be chosen for their rather strange appearance, especially in the sci-fi convention and choir scenes. What did you say in your casting notices?
JH - The choir scene is a lot of family and friends my mum, my brothers, there’s my Uncle Hal, and Aunt Patience. We try to populate our films with authentic faces, people who wouldn’t normally get to be in a film. We had our cast and crew screening in Salt Lake City and a lot of the people were there, it was cool to see the opportunities its given people. It’s fun!
AB – You’ve taken the weirdness factor of Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre and ramped it up ten times for Gentlemen Broncos.
JH - Yes. Especially the science fiction element creates opportunities for the film to get way out there. It was fun to create something from the mind of a 15 year old kid and from my own early years. I drew battle stags and wrote sci-fi!
AB - Your films are an acquired taste. Some are more open to your style than others. How do you speak about your films to people who don’t 'get' them?
JH - Napoleon Dynamite and this film are very autobiographical in nature. Some of the things happened to me or are based on people we know. You’re not told where to laugh ever. You choose what is funny to you; some audiences really like to know what’s funny. This film has its share of sight gags, the snake pooping, or whatever it may be. It’s a comedic sensibility, what people find funny.
But there’s not a drum roll before each joke and that can be uncomfortable for people but its stuff I enjoy. When you make a film like this you just cross your fingers and hope that there are people out there, who like the same thing. It can be intense. There are a lot of places in the film you think are going down a certain path that is going to be disturbing and dark and then when it doesn’t happens, there’s a relief people seeing it for a second time they’ll relax and enjoy it more, it ends happily.
AB – Do you let the characters come up with their own tics?
JH - I’m kind of bad because I’ll do line readings. I can do all the voices in the film, when were shooting and I’ll say things. I know real directors don’t do that. I don’t think of myself as a real director. I need to go to school and learn how to work with actors. Everyone on set was really good at humouring me they know how it works.
AB - Why is there so much upchucking in films and on TV these days?
JH - I grew up in a big family of boys, anything bodily works for me, fart jokes, vomiting, the snake thing happened to me. I was 14 and a friend caught a black rat snake in the woods and he had it around his neck and then it crapped all over his uniform, and he’s like, freaking and threw it back into the woods. I didn’t even know snakes pooped. I thought they’d just regurgitated bones and fur.
