By Thomas Chau in New York City

If you're walking down the streets of Manhattan and you see people wearing "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts, it's not because this year's presidential race has become racially diverse.

Instead, you've probably run into a group of fans suporting "Napoleon Dynamite," the new independent comedy from first-time writer/director Jared Hess. Fox Searchlight is pushing an extensive fan-targeted marketing campaign for the comedy, and very well they should be: The movie is damn funny and deserves to be seen by a large audience.

Playing the title role of Napoleon Dynamite is Jon Heder, a relatively unknown actor who met Jared Hess in college at BYU. The movie tells the story of a social misfit named Napoleon Dynamite, who has trouble fitting in among his peers in Preston, Idaho. He's often dazed in a world of his own where he draws strange creatures and prides himself on his "special skills," which include numchucks and his ability to play tetherball. Napoleon befriends a new student to the school, a Mexican named Pedro (Efren Ramirez). Despite being considered unpopular, Pedro decides to run for class president against the most popular girl in the school: The head cheerleader of the squad named Summer (Haylie Duff). Meanwhile, Napoleon's home life is getting interesting as well: his brother Kipp (Aaron Ruell) is looking forward to meeting an Internet babe he's been chatting with for months. Their Uncle Rico (Jon Gries), a man who can't seem to get passed his high school football days, has devised a scheme to earn money while Napoleon and Kipp are under his care.

Yep, this is the strange world of "Napoleon Dynamite" and it's a cool comedy to check out. But before you do, we talked to the film's star Jon Heder at a press day in New York City. Below is what he had to say.

Q: Napoleon acts and talks unlike any other character we’ve seen in a while. Did you come up with the way Napoleon acts and talks or was that more Jared’s direction?

JON: It was both mine and Jared’s work. When I first got the script for “Peluca,” we started rehearsing and sitting down with the camera and he gave me his version of Napoleon, the really pushed version of the sound. I took that and then did my more natural [version.] I also took a lot from my younger brothers because my younger brothers totally talk like that. (In Napoleon’s voice) “Idiot!” “Dang it!” “You’re so dumb!” So it came from both of us. It was a mutual collaboration.

Q: When you signed on, did your twin brother sign on to do the stunts, like getting hit by a piece of meat on the bicycle?

JON: No, no. That was all me. Drawings and stunts were all done by me.

Q: Drawings?

JON: Yeah, all me.

Q: So you really drew that image of the liger?

JON: Yeah.

Q: So what was your high school experience like? Were you on the popular side or on the loner side?

JON: I was in between Dawn and Napoleon. I wasn’t the most popular kid but I was more towards the popular side. I had a twin brother so everybody knew us so we were in our own world, kind of, but not in that totally dorky sense. People were like, “Oh, there are the Heder brothers. They’re good at drawing and they’re funny guys. They’re way cool.” So we never really hung out with the really popular guys and went to all the parties and stuff. We just did our own thing; we would draw a lot and make our own videos. That’s really how I got into film. But I was definitely not as clueless as Napoleon. I definitely had awkward stages. When I was 14, 15, man…I was an ugly kid. I was awkward and just did a lot of stupid things. But I was a little bit more aware of it than Napoleon. Not as clueless.

Q: Napoleon seems to think he’s better than everyone else…

JON: I don’t think he really thinks that. It’s one of those things that he just doesn’t want to think about. He just doesn’t want to admit it and therefore, he never really thinks about it. He just believes in his head that he’s good at these things, not necessarily better than everybody else but although he’ll say it, like “I can make that much money in 5 seconds!” He’s one of those kids who probably grabbed a bo-staff when he was little and swung it around and thought it was sweet. I mean, nobody else does bo-staffs where he lives. But he kind of admits it to Pedro in that [one] scene. He says, “I don’t really have any good skills.” That kind of shows his true form. He realizes that the one girl he had a chance to go to the dance with was Deb and Pedro snatched her up so I think he realizes that.

Q: So besides drawing, what are your other special skills?

JON: I like to dance and I like to draw. Animation, that’s what I studied. I like to do animation.

Q: With animation, would you like to write, or direct, or do the actual animating?

JON: I’d like to do it all. I think it’s interesting writing or directing animation but doing the actual hands-on animation – I love it.

Q: On computer?

JON: Computer. I started out doing a little bit of 2-D but computers are more enjoyable to me and you have way more control. I love it.

Q: Jared told us that the breakdance sequence you do in the movie wasn’t choreographed and that you came up with that on your own?

JON: Yeah, it was all freestyle. It took three takes. It was to three songs. I think Jared wanted to have three songs that almost had the same feel but had a little bit of difference just so he could work with some of the cuts and the edits. That was the worst scene for him to edit because it’s the pivotal climax so it had to work but we didn’t know which song we were going to use. Luckily, it works.

Q: How does an aspiring animator fall into the acting world and what happens to your career from here?

JON: Well, first of all, I met Jared at BYU. Even at the time, I wasn’t into animation – I was into film. So I was studying film. I did a little bit of acting and I met Jared and he thought I could do the role. That naturally turned into “Napoleon Dynamite” It’s my first film so acting isn’t a career yet. Neither is animation because I don’t have a job doing animation. I would love to make it a career but ultimately, I would love to do both.

Q: Are you worried about being possibly being typecast for future roles?

JON: That’s kind of a worry sometimes if they bring it to me. I think don’t anybody could write a character that would be so much like Napoleon. I really want to try different roles that are pushed – other characters that don’t look like me. I would have loved to have played the Dawn character or the school jock. Everybody has a certain dorkiness to themselves so I think I would love to play those kinds of characters.

Q: So it seems you would welcome the idea of doing an animated series based on Napoleon Dynamite?

JON: I don’t even know where that would begin. First, you would have to figure if they even wanted to do that. We’ve talked about a live-action series based on Napoleon, we’ve talked about an animated series based on Napoleon. I don’t know how serious we’ve been about an animated series. I think once, back in the day, Nickelodeon mentioned something about wanting to do an animated series based on Napoleon.

Q: For a guy who has come from such humble beginnings, is it overwhelming now that you’re the star of a movie, you’re on trading cards and posters, and you’ve been invited on MTV’s TRL?

JON: Oh yeah, it’s totally overwhelming. It’s definitely like, “Oh my gosh, is this for real?” It’s weird when you do the big stuff, like anything red carpet oriented, or talking to press, like you guys. (In Napoleon’s voice) You guys are awesome! I’ve tried to keep my cool about. People seemed to have liked it.

Q: If you could have one superhero power, what would you choose?

JON: It’s so funny that you ask that because when “X-Men 2” came out, we all went home and asked, “All right, if you had to have a superhero power but one that hasn’t been taken yet…” But I think being invisible would be pretty sweet or being able to change time. But flying would be it. That would be the sweetest power in the world.

"Napoleon Dynamite" opens in limited release June 11th.