By Stone Martindale Sep 30, 2006, 15:56 GMT
Actor Jon Heder played the loveable geek Napoleon Dynamite living in his own private Idaho. His career has taken a turn upward, now appearing in "School for Scoundrels."
Jon Heder - won't be hanging out with Tara Reid anytime soon... © Glenn Harris / Photorazzi
You won't be seeing him at the local watering holes of Hollywood swilling it up with the likes of Hilton, Lohan and Reid. Heder's demeanor is a bit more sober.
When asked if Heder had read any self help books to guide him in his career, Heder told Entertainment Underground: "I never read a self-help book except for the Bible. The Scriptures is maybe the closest thing, but I never owned a self-help book."
Heder explained he wasn't too keen on reading, but if he was going to read,his choice of fiction would be a sci-fi book, "not some stupid self-help book."
"I did pick up The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I tried it because it was such a popular book. I read it for two seconds and I just didn't get into it. I was like, 'I'm highly effective.' "
Heder downplays his charsimatic appeal on screen, and wants his underdog characters to win in love as well as life. In School for Scoundrels, Heder talks about his complexes of watching him in romantic scenes:
"You want him to get the girl. I mean, like any other romantic comedy, you want the guy to get the girl. Yeah, it was weird. I had a complex shooting the film like, "Am I really...?" Like the wardrobe people would always be telling me, "Don't worry, you look handsome in this outfit. Don't worry, when you kiss a girl it will be all worth it."
Heder is a tea totaler, not imbibing in alcohol or coffee, and so far the abstemious existence of his life has not affected his roles offered in Hollywood. "Sometimes. I mean, sometimes they don't know or sometimes they'll send a script or... I do find that actually. I don't want to say surprisingly, but Hollywood's been very good to me."
"Sometimes I take my notes and go, 'Okay, I like this but I'm not sure about this or that,' and if they're up for it they'll change it. But most of the films I've worked on, they've always taken my notes and they've been very good about taking out stuff that I'm not comfortable with." according to Heder in his interview with EOG online.
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