Strangest. Fact. Ever. Found via the great 700 Level. John Heder is of course the guy who played Napoleon Dynamite.
John Heder’s Fast Facts:
* Raised in a strict Mormon household and spent two years in Tokyo as a Mormon missionary.
* Majored in 3D Animation at Brigham Young University, alongside his identical twin brother.
* Won Breakthrough Male Performance and Best Musical Performance at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards for his role in Napoleon Dynamite.
* Is a nephew of former NFL player Vai Sikahema.
Source: John Heder’s TV guide page.
Comments
3 responses to “Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Vai?”
In Napoleon Dynamite, there are a lot of subtle nods to Mormon..errr..”culture.” One of the more obvious ones is that in some scenes Napoleon wears a Ricks College shirt. Ricks College is a mostly Mormon college up in Idaho that serves as a substitute for kids who couldn’t get in or didn’t want to go to BYU. Also, and this is not blatantly Mormon, but the very concerted effort to cuss without actually cussing always struck me as a very Mormon thing….the way he uses “frickin’” reminds me of the way I and a lot of people I went church with tried not to say “fuck” back in the day. It also takes place in Idaho, which is pretty Mormon-heavy though it doesn’t really have the reputation. There’s other stuff I can’t quite put my finger on in the movie, but still seem very Mormon to me too.
Also Re: Mormon and Vai Sikahema. I imagine he’s an uncle by marriage, but did you ever notice how many people of Polynesian descent, like Vai, are Mormons? Turns out the Mormon missionaries HEAVILY recruited Polynesians and American Indians, their selling point being that it was originally a “chosen” group of darker-skinned peoples whom (according to the book of Mormon) Jesus appeared to in the Western hemisphere after the resurrection. I recently read an article where there was some turmoil rising as a result of recent DNA findings which disavow some of the claims of their connections.
JS
Forget Mormon and Uncle Vai! That guy has an identical twin walking around out there!