Tim Heidecker on vapes, world-building, and the On Cinema-verse

With Mister America, Tim Heidecker takes his character “Tim Heidecker” to the streets of San Bernadino County to run for local office, expanding the wild world of On Cinema into feature film territory. Though, as he tells it, that wasn’t always the plan. Ahead of the film’s Los Angeles premiere, we spoke with Heidecker about the project’s accidental evolution into a feature, and how he worked with director Eric Notarnicola and editor Sascha Stanton Craven to create the movie’s claustrophobic feeling—which he amusingly likens to Rope and Rear Window. Heidecker also touched on the schizophrenic nature of the “On Cinema universe,” the further obfuscation of who Tim Heidecker really is, and how they saw the current vape controversy coming years ago.