Jonathan Heder is an American actor best known for playing Napoleon Dynamite in the 2004 comedy film of the same name. He has also voiced characters in the animated films Monster House, Surf’s Up, and Pinocchio, as well as the Napoleon Dynamite animated series. Heder won an MTV Movie Award for Best Musical Performance and Breakthrough Male Performance for Napoleon Dynamite in June 2005. He hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guest Ashlee Simpson on October 8, 2005. Heder and his film co-star Efren Ramirez then starred in a series of commercials to promote the 2015 Utah State Fair, as well as reprising their roles in the animated series Robot Chicken’s self-parody comedy “Napoleon Bonamite.”
In the romantic comedy Just Like Heaven, Heder had a supporting role as a clerk in a new age bookstore in 2005. He starred alongside Rob Schneider and David Spade in producer Adam Sandler’s The Benchwarmers (2006), a comedy about three men who make up for lost opportunities by starting their own Little League baseball club. Heder also voiced Skull in the animated picture Monster House in 2006, and acted alongside Billy Bob Thornton and Jacinda Barrett in the comedy School for Scoundrels. He co-starred in the well-received Blades of Glory (2007) with Will Ferrell.
Heder returned to his most famous role in 2012, providing the voice of Napoleon Dynamite in the Fox Network animated series Napoleon Dynamite, which premiered in January 2012. Heder starred in the music video for “On Top of the World” in 2013, among a number of prominent Utah actors and musicians, and in the music video for Chromeo’s “Old 45s” in 2014. Heder returned to the role of Chicken Joe in Surf’s Up 2: WaveMania, the direct-to-video sequel to Surf’s Up, in January 2017.
