Taming 'Broncos': Jared and Jerusha Hess find oddball humor close to home

Jared and Jerusha Hess are not like you might expect.

They are not your typical Hollywood power couple, even though Jared has just directed his third movie, his second co-writing with Jerusha. They also don't appear to be weirdo hipsters, even though their movies -- the mega-popular "Napoleon Dynamite" and their new comedy, "Gentlemen Broncos" (which opens in Salt Lake City today) -- are filled with oddball characters in an off-kilter world.

Instead, the Hesses appear to be a pretty normal couple -- the tall guy with the mountain-man beard and the energetic woman with the pixie haircut. Jared, 30, was born and mostly raised in Preston, Idaho, where "Napoleon Dynamite" was later filmed. Jerusha, 29, grew up in the Midwest.

They're just two nice young folks who met at Brigham Young University, got married, worked on several film sets together, settled down in Salt Lake City and are now raising two kids.

And, to them, the strange characters in their movies are pretty normal. Often, they're based on family.

"I have this weird cousin in Alaska," Jerusha Hess said in a recent interview, describing what inspired the main character of "Gentlemen Broncos." "He was making these really disturbing sci-fi stories, and his parents were really concerned."

Finishing the thought, Jared Hess continued, "We read some of them, and the content was, 'Whoa, sweet!' "

Thus was planted the seed for "Gentlemen Broncos," in which a home-schooled

teen, Benjamin (played by "Sky High's" Michael Angarano), shows other people his bizarre science-fiction story, with disastrous results: Two artistic teens (Halley Pfeffer and Hector Jimenez) turn it into a low-rent movie, while a famous novelist (Jemaine Clement, from "Flight of the Conchords") plagiarizes the work and publishes it as his own.

"Gentlemen Broncos" was filmed all around northern Utah. Benjamin's geodesic-dome house was found in Erda. A movie premiere was filmed at the

Ritz in Tooele. A scene in a bookstore was shot at Sam Weller's. La Caille restaurant doubled as a mansion. A soundstage was built in the old Granite Furniture store in Sugar House -- "I could ride my bike to work," Jared Hess said.

Also, the movie's hilariously cheesy fantasy sequences, which depict Benjamin's science-fiction story and Chevalier's reworked versions (both with Sam Rockwell playing the hero), were shot on Stansbury Island.

In some ways, "Gentlemen Broncos" is, after Jared Hess' turn directing Jack Black in the Mexican-wrestler comedy "Nacho Libre," a return to the Hesses' roots: Its characters are small-town eccentrics similar to those who populated "Napoleon Dynamite."

For example, Benjamin's mom in "Gentlemen Broncos," an entrepreneur selling popcorn balls and modest nightgowns at swap meets (and played by Jennifer Coolidge), is based on "my mom and Jerusha's mom," Jared Hess said.

Clement's character, the pompous Dr. Ronald Chevalier, came from an experience when the Hesses were working together as camera assistants on a long-forgotten independent production. "The screenwriter came on set," Jerusha Hess recalled, and his look -- leather jacket, turtleneck sweater, Bluetooth headset in his ear "that he never used once," Jared Hess said -- was the inspiration for Chevalier. (For the voice, Jared Hess told Clement to watch "Logan's Run" and copy Michael York's British cadences.)

The Hesses have always found ideas for characters close to home. "When my mom saw 'Napoleon,' she was like, 'That was a lot of embarrassing family material,' " Jared Hess said. "['Gentlemen Broncos'] is a lot more similar to 'Napoleon,' in the sense that the characters that populate the film, and the situations and things that happen, are things that we've experienced to some degree. ... This is an environment and people that we know intimately."

But when humor gets that personal, some people don't get the joke. "Napoleon Dynamite" divided critics when it premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival -- some found it fresh and original, others thought it juvenile. Audience members also were split, so much so that the DVD-rental service Netflix reported that "Napoleon Dynamite" was the most difficult movie to place on subscribers' "recommended" lists. ("I don't know why they don't call us and let us make a list," Jerusha Hess said. "I think we can come up with that list for Netflix. ... I'll crack that code.")

"Our stuff comes from a very specific place," Jared Hess said. "With 'Napoleon,' people either loved it on a real wild level or they thought it was the dumbest thing they had ever seen and they totally hated it. ... We're making the type of films we want to see."

"It's whether you're in touch with your dumb side," said Jerusha Hess (who collaborated with another writer on a romantic comedy while Jared edited "Gentlemen Broncos"). "Little kids like our movies a lot, and then you get these hipster college kids who love our movies in weird ways, and then you get the moms who are like, 'Oh, my gosh --that was so fun.' "

Staying close to home, in Utah, helps the Hesses stay in touch with their weird side.

"We find our inspiration every time we go to the Home Depot or the Utah State Fair," Jared Hess said.

"I feel like we have cornered the market on this Rocky Mountain comedy," Jerusha Hess agreed.

Besides, she said with mock immodesty, "Here, we're kind of famous. We're something special. When we go to the Bombay House, they give us the assorted snacks every time for free."

movies@sltrib.com