The cast of "Napoleon Dynamite" on June 9, 2014, at a 10th anniversary ceremony
(L-R) Haylie Duff, Shondrella Avery, Carmen Brandy, Diedrich Bader, Jon Heder, Jared Hess, Sandy Martin, Tina Majorino and Efren Ramirez attend the Fox Searchlight Pictures & Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Celebrates "Napoleon Dynamite" 10th Anniversary With Statue Dedication at Fox Studio Lot on June 9, 2014 in Century City, California. Valerie Macon/Getty Images

"Napoleon Dynamite" just turned 20

Yes, that quirky, hilarious teen comedy set in Preston, Idaho, in which frumpy fashion and deadpan humor abound - starring Jon Heder as Napoleon, Tina Majorino as Deb and Efren Ramirez as Pedro - was initially screened before a public audience at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 17, 2004.

Napoleon, in case you've missed it, is an awkward, bespectacled teen who's constantly annoyed and "out to prove he's got nothing to prove," the film's tagline says.

It's during this quest for nothing in particular that the scrawny geek befriends high school classmates Deb and Pedro.

Pedro's run for class president - like many parts of "Napoleon Dynamite" - ended up reaching early-social media meme status by immortalizing the phrase "Vote For Pedro," but the overall post-premiere reaction to the film stood in stark contrast with Ramirez's expectations going into that fateful night at Sundance, he told me in a past interview.

It wasn't until he witnessed some positive feedback from an Oscar-winning actress during the screening that he realized how memorable the night was going to be - and for all of the right reasons.

"I remember we had Faye Dunaway sitting behind us, sitting behind Jon and me, right behind the cast," Ramirez, of Los Angeles, said. "She tapped Jon's shoulder and she's like, 'I like your work. I think you're remarkable.' He looked at me like, 'Who's that lady?' I'm like, 'That's 'Mommie Dearest,' bro!'

"To see the audience supporting the film, I thought, 'Wow! This is cool,' " the Salvadorian/Mexican American added. "You don't want anybody booing your film, or booing your performance. Everybody really liked it; then they called us all up.

"You could see everybody glowing because of how the film had made them feel."


Produced on a $400,000 budget in the summer of 2003, "Napoleon Dynamite" - directed by Jared Hess and co-written with his wife, Jerusha, went on the gross nearly $45 million at the box office following its wide release in August of '04. The movie also won three 2005 MTV Movie Awards and gained a cult following among college students of the time.

Ramirez said he had beaten out "six or seven" other candidates for the role of Pedro Sánchez, a broken English-speaking immigrant from Latin America. The actor initially struggled to figure out his character, admitting that he instead spent that uncertain period during principal photography worried that he was going to get kicked off the film at any moment.

"I thought I was going to be fired," Ramirez said. "I really had a fear of getting a phone call from my agent saying, 'Pack your bags. You're coming back to Los Angeles. You don't know what the heck you're doing!'

"But I saw what Jon was doing and the choices that he was making, and then (Jared Hess) sort of walked us a little into the direction that we were going. So they trusted what we were doing, and I said, 'This might work.' And it did."

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival began on Thursday, Jan. 18, and concludes on Sunday, Jan. 28.