As in director Jared Hess, his wife/writing partner Jerusha – the masterminds behind the indie gem Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre – and actor Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame, who collaborated on Gentlemen Broncos.
Briefly, it’s a story of Benjamin (Michael Angarano), a lonely teenage boy, home-schooled by his eccentric mother (Jennifer Coolidge), who goes to a fantasy writers’ camp and has his sci-fi story ripped off by the very legend he was there to meet – fantasy author Dr. Chevalier (Clement). Benjamin then suffers further humiliation when his original story is turned into an amateur film, created by a local filmmaker. Yes, it’s another weird and wacky trip through Smallville, USA, as only the quirky Hesses could do it.
Thing is, Jared and Jerusha Hess aren’t really those eccentric L.A. types. Having met at BYU, the couple lives in Utah, near most of their rather large families (each have five or six brothers). A lot of the stuff they write is about experiences they’ve had with those they know and love – combined with a nicely skewed sense of humor. And as with Dynamite‘s Jon Heder, they’ve found a kindred spirit with Clement. Let’s just say, they get each other. Plus, as Jerusha explains, “I think Jared really just wanted him because they look similar. Jared could step in in case he took ill.” It’s true; they both look a LOT alike.
In chatting with them, you get the picture they had a bit of fun making this movie:
Step 1: Be inspired by the ones you know
Jared Hess: [Jemaine Clement] initially wanted to play the character as an American but we told him to watch the original Logan’s Run and try and do like a Michael York voice.
Jemaine Clement: “Yeah. I love that film anyway, so I watched it again. But also I had a lecturer, 
who was a sci-fi writer, a professor. He was an author and he would talk about his ideas. I even kind of changed one of his short story ideas a little bit when my character is talking on the phone about his other ideas. I used one of his ideas. It was about a time-traveling bakery. Was it in there? It’ll be on the DVD, probably.”
Step 2: Then impersonate them
Jemaine: “The lecturer spoke with a very deep voice, so I kinda mixed Michael York’s accent with my professor’s tone. That’s how you make a voice.”
Jared: “So he called back up. He’s like, [doing a dead-on impression of Jemaine] ‘Yeah, I’ve been trying it on Miranda, my wife. Check it out: [then switches into Chevalier’s voice] Hello, Dr. Chevalier.’ We were like all right, that’s what we’ll do.”
Jemaine: “I know [Jared Hess] does everyone else. Whenever he tells a story about someone, he does their voice. I was wondering, ‘Does he do my voice when I’m not around?’ There’s this one part, actually … he’ll come up with other line additions, either because he feels like line isn’t working or he’ll come up with some other idea for the joke. He’s like [doing his own dead-on impression of Jared Hess], “Dude, uh, when Chevalier comes up the podium, um, I want him to say [doing the Michael York blend] Salutations.’ He’ll go into it. I’m sure he was better at than me in the end. And he does every character.”
Step 3: If you’ve got a comedic style, stick with it.
Jared: “Yeah, we’ve just tried to stay true to the things that inspire us. We live out in Utah and our environment and the people that we know and interact with there are definitely a big part of the characters and the stories that are in our films. Because we lived it.”
Jerusha Hess: “But we have some secrets up our sleeves. When we’re writing, it seems like we’ll write something funny and then instead of responding to that, we’ll write a pause. To read it and to see it is a little awkward so I think we understand this awkward teen thing pretty well. Sorry, that’s our whole purpose. We want to make you guys feel weird.”
Jemaine: “I definitely feel something in common with those guys. When I first saw Napoleon Dynamite, I hadn’t heard of it, just a friend took me when we were doing some Flight of the Conchords gigs. To me, I felt like, ‘Oh, someone else is doing what we’re doing in New Zealand, saying weird things and being totally serious about it.’ And yeah, I relate to the comedy.”
Step 4: Explain the title Gentlemen Broncos, please
Jared: “My mom had a really weird parenting book growing up called So You Want to Raise a Boy, because she had six boys. It’s a really old book written in the ’50s but there’s a chapter in there called ‘The Gentleman Bronco.’ It refers to the ages of 15 to 16. I can’t remember the age group exactly, but the age when a young man likes to take his shirt off and mow the lawn. It has very little to do with the film other than that’s kind of the age of Benjamin.”
Step 5: Sci-fi geeks?
Jared: “It’s funny because I was more into the science fiction films, but I loved the science fiction cover art. I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t really read a lot of sci-fi stories. The sci-fi stuff I read wasn’t really sci-fi but it was like my mom’s Reader’s Digets UFO: The Continuing Enigma book. I’m a believer, man. It was those things that fascinated me. The cover art of science fiction books have always been inspiring.”
Jemaine: “I liked some sci-fi films, but I wouldn’t say that … I had a couple of posters of sexy robots on my wall. But other than that, I wasn’t that dedicated.”
Step 6: Ad-lib, ad-lib, ad-lib!
Jared: “It’s great. As prepared as you can be as a director and coming in with a game plan, we like to storyboard all of our films. It’s good because it kind of gives you a point of departure. You know what you need to make this scene or to make that work. So that gives you time. It liberates you in a sense to when you’re working with people like Jennifer Coolidge or Sam Rockwell or Jemaine, people that can improvise and have really fun ideas, it’s good to be able to take advantage of that. It doesn’t always end up in the film, but it’s cool.”
Jemaine: “Yeah, we’d always do some ad-libbing. And I’m so used to that from The Conchords. I’m not used to having to learn lines because on Conchords we make up the lines, so no one is going to tell us what it’s supposed to be. I’m just used to remembering the idea of the scene, cause that’s what we all do on Conchords. We always tell our actors not to learn their lines, not properly. I’d probably do that out of habit, just wander off on some tangent. It would be hard to stop me from doing that.”
Step 7: Indie vs. Big Studio
Jared: “I think when you’re working with a lower budget, it kind of grants you a little more creative license to cast the film the way you want and have final cut. Those things are very important to us so it’s a lot of fun. And with limited resources, it makes it fun especially with the science fiction sequences in the film. It kind of added to the charm.”
Step 8: Don’t be nervous to show your stuff to your family
Jerusha: “I think Jared’s still nervous to show his movies to his grandparents, so I think some of that comes into play.”
Jared: “Yeah, my grandma was talking to my brother the other day and she was like, [doing his grandmother] ‘I sure hope Jared has other things in line because this comedy thing sure isn’t gonna last much longer.’ I don’t think she’s gotten any one of our films, but that’s OK. I still love my grandmother very much.”
Step 9: And be careful not to plagiarize
Jemaine: “I’d say yes [he may have been plagiarized], but you know it’s hard to say. I used to work in advertising a little for a radio station and a big advertising company copied one of my ads. I went in and played them this ad I made for them, that they had me to write for them, but it didn’t work out. Then the ad they did make up for the thing was just like mine, like my ad. That just happens. But you can do it accidentally, too. For instances, I used to write sketches and I remember one sketch I handed in, about these old people complaining about all these things they had to do and how hard it was. It was based on my parents and uncles talking when I was a kid. The producers I gave the sketch to said that it was just like a Monty Python sketch. I’d never seen Monty Python, so I checked it out, and it was pretty much the same. I then realized that when I was a kid, my aunties and uncles and mom were probably quoting Monty Python, so I accidentally plagiarized Monty Python.”