Efren Ramirez

Pedro Sanchez delivers his lines without asking us to notice the joke. In Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Ramirez’s deadpan manner gives Jon Heder’s outsider someone whose company is worth having, even when little is happening. We warmed to Pedro because Ramirez lets his hopefulness survive the awkward encounters without making a fuss of it. There is room for affection in this performance, and that matters in a comedy which can make us wait rather too long for a laugh.

Jared Hess’s film remains the clearest place to see what Ramirez contributes to an ensemble. The screenplay by Hess and Jerusha Hess is at its strongest in small encounters, where Pedro and Tina Majorino’s Deb spare Napoleon the job of supplying every comic variation. Ramirez’s restraint gives those scenes a different pace from the broader unease of Aaron Ruell’s Kip and Jon Gries’s Uncle Rico. It is useful, generous acting, although it cannot solve the film’s growing shortage of story.

His breakthrough in that film led to work well beyond quiet comedy. In Crank (2006), Ramirez played Kaylo opposite Jason Statham, returning to the series for Crank: High Voltage (2009). Walkout (2006) gave him the role of Bobby Verdugo, while subsequent work has extended across television and voice acting. We would not dismiss those changes of company simply because Pedro remains the character most readily associated with him.

The risk of that association is that restraint becomes all an audience asks him to repeat. Pedro works because Ramirez also makes his loyalty and hopefulness matter; the performance would be thinner if it were only a collection of flatly delivered lines. We want parts that give him that much to play, whatever their genre. Start with Napoleon Dynamite, accepting its stalled jokes, and notice how much easier Heder’s task becomes when Ramirez is there to share it.