'Dynamite' director Hess directs 'Gentlemen' comedy

“Napoleon Dynamite” gained popularity despite – or perhaps because of – its low budget. And  after director Jared Hess’ second, bigger-budget movie, “Nacho Libre,” he’s serving audiences another feebly-funded film.
Hess was in Boston Thursday to promote “Gentleman Broncos,” a quirky comedy starring Michael Angarano and Jemaine Clement.  The film opens Friday at Kendall Square Cinema at 1 Kendall Sq. in Cambridge.
“Broncos” follows the escapades of awkward teenager Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano), an aspiring science fiction writer whose middle-American life is turned upside down when he attends the writer’s camp “Cletus Festival.” Away from home for the first time, Benjamin befriends romance novelist Tabatha (Halley Feiffer) and filmmaker Lonnie (Hector Jimenez), and science fiction author Dr. Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement) steals his novel.
Much like Napoleon and Nacho before him, Benjamin is an outcast, which Hess said is no coincidence.
“I moved around a lot growing up as a kid, and I definitely identify with the outsider trying to fit in. It’s been a theme in all of our films thus far,” Hess said.
“Gentlemen Broncos” is also similar to Napoleon in that it marks a return to a lower-budget style of filmmaking, which Hess said was just fine with him.
“‘[Nacho]’ was a bigger budget studio film,” he said. “I mean, we shot in Mexico and had a big crew. With ‘Broncos’ we shot it in Utah, and this was a little lower budget so we used a lot of the same people from ‘Napoleon’ ... I got final cut, and I got to make a lot more decisions about actors.”
Hess said he prefers living and working in Utah to filming in Mexico and Los Angeles, where he has filmed commercials.
“Everyone gets their kind of creative nuggets in different places,” he said, “And I tend to get mine in the Rocky Mountain area of America.”
After the success of “Napoleon Dynamite,” which Hess said was “like a dream come true,” the pressure of creating films that recreate that success could be crushing. However, Hess said he isn’t stressed.
“We never anticipated ‘Napoleon’ to be so huge, it just sort of became a monster all on its own. You just need to continually do the things you’re passionate about and not change who you are for the money. I think that’s the most important thing to retain as you move forward.”
Hess’ previous two films were rated PG, and “Gentlemen Broncos” is his first work to receive a PG-13 rating. Hess said he believes his most recent film will appeal to the same demographic and comedic sensibility, but that parents have to know what their kids are ready to see. Referencing a scene in the movie, he said, “I don’t want [kids] dipping a blow dart in some poo and going crazy.”
As for the future, Hess wouldn’t say exactly what his plans were.
“I’ve got some stuff in the mix, it’s probably too early to talk about,” he said. “But now that [‘Gentlemen Broncos’] is out, I’ve got to get back to work.”