NAPOLEON DYNAMITE STAR CRANKS IT UP

Efrem Ramirez, star of Napoleon Dynamite, plays a transvestite who is in love with Jason Statham’s character in the movie Crank, and he earned his keep. Keyw…

Efren Ramirez most known to movie audiences as Pedro Sanchez in Napoleon Dynamite makes a 360 degree turn playing a transvestite in Crank who gets tortured and tied up while trying to protect the man he secretly loves played by Jason Statham. Efren, the consummate professional insisted on doing his own stunts.

Efren also sacrificed his lungs for the part because his character smoked. An anti-smoker he inhaled cigarette after cigarette while eating chicken tacos take after take refusing Hollywood’s fake tobacco for authenticity.

“There’s a scene where I was actually tied up and they put squibs on me which are little packets of blood. So when we tried it the first time they were like, ‘oh that’s pretty good and they hurt. They said can we do it again but add more blood? I said sure let’s try it but I didn’t realize they were gonna put blood all over my knee caps, my thighs, my stomach, my chest, my arms. My God they really packed me in. All these things that happened to me the following day I couldn’t even get up out of my bed. I was so bruised up but all for the love of the art, right?”

Next up for Efren is the comedy Employee of The Month co-starring Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson.rn

“There are certain cigarettes that I guess Hollywood will provide you with and I said no I don’t want to do that. Let me really smoke and take some Marlboro Reds. So I’m taking a hit on these cigarettes and you forget you’re doing close-up take, master take, tight angles whatever so after my ninth or tenth cigarette in the middle of the scene I was getting so dizzy. I’m talking to Jason and I’m like, ‘hold on dude wait,’ and I threw up everything and the director’s like welcome to Crank!”