Taika Waititi

Film director, actor

• Born: August 16, 1975
• Place of Birth: Raukokore region, New Zealand

Film director, actor

Education: Victoria University of Wellington

Background

Taika David Waititi was born in the Raukokore region of New Zealand's East Coast on August 16, 1975. He is of Te-Whanau-a-Apanui Māori descent through his father, a farmer and amateur painter who instilled in him a love of art from an early age. His mother, a schoolteacher, was of Russian Jewish descent, and Waititi occasionally went by her surname, Cohen.

Waititi attended the Te Aro School in Wellington, New Zealand, where he began to work on his first art projects. As a young student, he had a fascination with Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which he repeatedly drew his own versions of.

After finishing secondary school, Waititi enrolled as an art student at Victoria University of Wellington, where he pursued an education as a painter while taking numerous roles as an amateur actor. He shared a studio space off campus with several artists, including Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, who would go on to create the critically acclaimed band Flight of the Conchords and television series of the same name. Waititi and Clement won the 1999 Billy T Comedy Award, given annually to promising young New Zealand comics, for their stand-up duo, the Humourbeasts.

While continuing to achieve moderate success as a painter, Waititi continued to accept acting roles, increasing his profile in the New Zealand filmmaking and television community.

He earned a best actor nomination at the NZ Film Awards in 1999 for his role as a promiscuous young man in the film Scarfies, directed by Robert Sarkies. In the early 2000s he appeared in the popular New Zealand television series The Strip (2002) as well the film Snakeskin (2001).

Directorial Career

Though he had established himself as a prominent working actor in New Zealand, Waititi became increasingly frustrated with what he perceived was a lack of creative control over the television and film roles he had been working on. This dissatisfaction would ultimately lead him to create his own screenplays for works which he would direct. The second of these films, Two Cars, One Night, was released in 2004, to great acclaim in the world of independent film. The understated short film, which focuses on a romance that develops between two young children in the parking lot of a New Zealand bar, won eight awards at festivals in cities around the world, including Berlin, Seattle, and Hamburg. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film in 2004.

Two Cars, One Night would be the first in a string of critically acclaimed films directed by Waititi. His film Tama Tū (2005), about a troop of Māori soldiers in World War II, won an honorable mention in the category of short filmmaking at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and gained further prizes at festivals in Stockholm, Indianapolis, and Berlin.

Waititi's first feature-length film, the 2007 romantic comedy Eagle vs. Shark, won critical praise for its cinematic originality. The film marked a reunion between Waititi and Clement, who played the male lead. Eagle vs. Shark was shown at both the Sundance Film Festival and the South by Southwest arts and music festival in 2007.

Waititi's real breakthrough as a director and as an actor came with his 2010 coming-of-age film, Boy. Set in New Zealand in 1984, the film portrays a young boy getting to know his father (played by Waititi), who returns to the island after a lengthy disappearance. The film earned five awards at the 2010 New Zealand Film and TV Awards, including best director and best supporting actor in a feature film for Waititi himself. The film was also nominated for the Grand Jury prize in the category of dramatic world cinema at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It would go on to become the highest-grossing locally made film in New Zealand history.

In 2014 Waititi successfully led a Kickstarter campaign to release Two Cars, One Night in the United States. His vampire comedy mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows—which he cowrote, codirected, and costarred in with Clement—premiered at the Sundance Film Festival the same year. It received much critical acclaim and was a financial success as well. It spawned two television spin-offs: Wellington Paranormal, which first aired in New Zealand in 2018, and What We Do in the Shadows, which premiered on the FX network in 2019. Waititi served as an executive producer on both projects and also directed multiple episodes.

Meanwhile, Waititi continued to pursue diverse feature film projects. He directed and had a cameo in Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), a comedy-drama that focuses on a juvenile delinquent and his foster father who become the subject of a police manhunt. It received very positive reviews and became the highest-grossing New Zealand film of all time. Waititi was then chosen to helm the superhero blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok (2017), part of the massively successful cinematic universe based on Marvel Comics properties. Although his selection was considered surprising to many industry observers due to his lack of experience with big-budget, special effects–laden productions, the film was a critical and commercial hit, with reviewers praising Waititi's direction and incorporation of his signature humor. Waititi also appeared in the film as a supporting character, Korg, who became a fan favorite.

Waititi's next film was Jojo Rabbit (2019), a satire about a boy in Nazi-era Germany who has Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend. It was based on the 2008 book Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, and Waititi himself portrayed Hitler, reportedly at the insistence of the studio. The film drew mixed reviews, with critics mainly divided on the success of the combination of Nazis and comedy. However, it was nominated for two awards (including Best Picture) at the 2020 Academy Awards, and by taking home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Waititi became the first person of Maori descent to win an Oscar. He also won a BAFTA and a Writers Guild of America Award for his adapted screenplay. The following year, Waititi earned a Grammy Award for his work as producer of the Jojo Rabbit soundtrack.

Waititi next directed the season one finale of Disney's Star Wars series The Mandalorian in 2019. He also guest starred as the assassin droid IG-11 that featured in several episodes throughout the first season. In 2021, Waititi appeared in both The Suicide Squad and Free Guy. He also served as a cocreator of the critically acclaimed television series Reservation Dogs (2021), which details the lives of four Indigenous American teens in Oklahoma. The following year, Waititi directed, produced, and acted in the HBO comedy series Our Flag Means Death, which fictionalizes the life of pirate Stede Bonnet. Waititi also wrote, directed, and voiced a character in Marvel Studios' Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), a sequel to Thor: Ragnarok. Commercially successful, the film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the film's humor and performances from the cast.

Waititi directed the 2023 film Next Goal Wins, a comedy based on the true story of the terrible soccer team from American Samoa. The team is remembered for a 31-0 loss at the 2001 FIFA tournament. The movie, which Waititi also cowrote, stars Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, and Kaimana.

The director's next project, filmed in his homeland, was a 2024 television adaptation of the 1981 film Time Bandits for Apple TV. Again wearing the hats of writer, director, and actor, Waititi portrays the character Supreme Being. The show follows a group of time-traveling thieves and a human boy who gets dragged along on their adventures in hopes of saving his family. The movie was written by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin of Monty Python fame. Waititi asked Friends actress Lisa Kudrow to star in his adaptation as the leader of the bandits.

Impact

Though he came to film almost accidentally, Taika Waititi emerged as an international star both behind and in front of the camera. He found critical and commercial success with both small-scale and big-budget projects, all marked by his trademark brand of dry humor. Waititi's work became especially popular and influential in his native New Zealand, thanks in large part to his use of his native country as a location for much of his work, but also due to his embrace of the island's culture in his narratives. He is a five-time New Zealand Film and TV Awards winner, and his series Wellington Paranormal won the 2020 New Zealand TV Award for best comedy or entertainment program.

Personal Life

Waititi has two children from his marriage to Chelsea Winstanley, which ended in divorce in 2018. He married musician Rita Ora in 2022. He has directed several of her videos.

Bibliography

Baille, Russell. "Taika Waititi: Our Boy Wonder."New Zealand Herald. APN New Zealand, 9 Dec. 2010. Web. 6 June 2014.

Daniell, Sarah. "Twelve Questions with Taika Waititi." New Zealand Herald. APN New Zealand, 8 Mar. 2012. Web. 6 June 2014.

Hunt, Tom. "Taika Waititi Reveals Childhood Passions." Dominion Post. Fairfax New Zealand, 7 Feb. 2012. Web. 6 June 2014.

Itzkoff, Dave. "What Makes Taika Waititi Run and Run and Run?" The New York Times, 29 Jun. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/movies/taika-waititi-thor-love-and-thunder.html. Accessed 31 Oct. 2019.

Sintumuang, Kevin. "Taika Waititi Doesn't Talk About His Feelings. He Makes Movies About Them." Esquire, 17 Oct. 2019, www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a29329396/taika-waititi-jojo-rabbit-interview-2019/. Accessed 31 Oct. 2019.

"Taika Waititi." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0169806/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

"Taika Waititi." NZ On Screen. NZ On Screen, n.d. Web. 6 June 2014.

Waititi, Taika. "Taika Waititi's Inner Child." Interview by Craig Hubert. Interview. Brant Publications, 29 Feb. 2012. Web. 6 June 2014.