Taika Waititi Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

I swear to you, I swear,

I know this is gonna seem like a lie,

I had no intention of playing that character

when I wrote it.

Heil Hitler, you're gonna be the best!

Heil Hitler, you can do it!

Look at me.

I'm a brown supermodel, okay?

It doesn't make any sense.

[upbeat music]

Thor: Ragnarok.

Well, with Thor I wanted to do something

that felt different to the other films.

You know, I wanted to do a good job.

You know, it's the first time

that I'd worked on someone else's IP really

and it was, it's Thor.

I think it was like the 17th movie they'd made

and they had had nothing but consecutive hits

the entire time so it's not,

my job is not to come in and say,

I think this is how you guys need to be doing it.

My job is to come in and go like,

what's the best I can do to help you

make Thor the best that he can be.

And I didn't think that all of Chris's talents

had been utilized up until that point,

I didn't think that the character

was as interesting as it could be,

'cause looking at the comics,

it's pop art, it's crazy, it's cosmic,

you know, there's so many things

that I had not seen in the first two films

and wanted to explore.

Obviously the Jack Kirby art and all of that.

And even down to characters,

which is a nice segue into my character, Korg.

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Korg,

I'm kind of like the leader in here.

I'm made of rocks, as you can see,

but don't let that intimidate you.

You don't need to be afraid unless you're made of scissors.

Just a little rock, paper, scissors joke for you.

I just like the idea of playing this big rock guy

who was Thor's buddy, who's like a sidekick.

You know, I really wish I had my hammer.

Your hammer?

Quite unique, it was made from this,

this special metal from the heart of a dying star.

And when I spun it really, really fast

it gave me the ability to fly.

You rode a hammer?

No, I, I didn't ride the hammer.

The hammer rode you on your back?

No, no, no, I, I spin it really fast

and it would, it would pull me off the-

Oh my god, the hammer pulled you off?

The ground, it would pull me off the ground

up into the air and I would fly.

There's different types

of the New Zealand accent, you know,

and I base that on the Polynesian accent of like,

mainly I was thinking about bouncers outside nightclubs,

you know, growing up in New Zealand

and always like just massive, giant guys,

but they're the most beautiful, humble,

nice people you'll ever meet, you know?

And like, why do they need to be aggressive?

They just don't need to,

it's like a wall of a person stopping you getting in.

So why not be nice if you're that big, you know?

So, you know, I've grown up around a lot of those guys

and it's just like a, it's just a voice and a style

and it's just a sensibility

that I've always found really like comforting to be around.

Just being Polynesian as well,

I just like the idea of having a character like that

in an American studio film.

I wasn't even sure

if people would even understand my accent,

I thought, well, they'll probably make me revoice this

or get someone else to do it because, you know,

the voice is so over the top,

who the hell is gonna understand this?

But it's been amazing, the fact that people can understand

and also then grew to love that character.

The damage is not too bad.

As long as the foundations are still strong,

we can rebuild this place.

It will become a haven for all peoples

and aliens of the universe.

[explosion booms]

Now those foundations are gone, sorry.

[rhythmic music]

Thor: Love and Thunder.

Korg is back in Love and Thunder.

Again, it's me.

How would I not crowbar by myself in there, you know?

I think it would've been a disservice,

I can't even believe I'm talking like this about myself.

I do think it would've been a disservice to the fans

to not include Korg from this film.

I thought that, you know, my life was complete

when I worked with Cate Blanchett

and that was one of the great experiences of my career.

And then coming in to this new film,

we've got Russell Crow, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman.

You know, Natalie is someone I've admired for many years

and I've always found her very funny in person

and I've always like enjoyed watching her work.

I just always wanted to work with her

and when the opportunity came to bring Jane Foster back

to the franchise, I jumped at that.

And also just to focus on The Mighty Thor,

the comic run by Jason Aaron,

where she gets to pick up the hammer

and becomes a superhero, and what's cooler?

There's nothing cooler for a character like Jane Foster

than to transform and evolve and become like, you know,

to become a massive part of the story.

And then Christian Bale who, you know,

look, listen, personally between Christian and Russell,

you know, there's probably two of my favorite actors.

Let's see who you are.

I take off your disguise, and flick.

[crowd gasps]

You flicked too hard, dammit!

To get a chance to work with both of them,

they're two of my heroes and to work with both of them

in the same film was just something else, you know.

I've adored Russell for many years, you know,

I think I've watched Master and Commander

probably 70 times.

Russell's one of those guys who,

you know you're in good hands with him

when you're watching one of his films,

you know, you're getting looked after.

You know, it's like, there's very few people

that are real stars like that.

And I've always felt that about him

and then became friends with him.

In real life you're in great hands as well.

He's a great dude.

Jojo Rabbit.

So Caging Skies was the book that Jojo Rabbit

is loosely based on.

my mother had just read it,

she gave me the book, she said, read this book,

I think it'll make a great film.

But the way she described it

was actually more like Jojo Rabbit.

'Cause I read the book and it was nothing like the film

that I made, it was like this very dark,

you know, there was like a lot of

really intense, sad moments and it gets pretty twisted.

It's more of a kind of psychological thriller than anything

and there was no comedy, it wasn't a comedy.

There was no imaginary Hitler.

So all of that stuff I put in later on

and I was trying to think of like,

how can I make this my own?

How can I make this more of a Taika film?

the heart of the book and what made it really special

and what drew me in was this relationship

between the boy and the girl

that's being hidden by his mother in the house.

You know, that really is the heart of the whole film.

I wrote the first few drafts

and I was really happy with the script.

Then we started thinking,

who would play this imaginary Hitler?

Now, this was about 2011

and we started sending it out to different people.

I don't think a lot of actors

even got to look at the script.

Basically, I think a lot of agents were like,

hell no, am I sending this to my client?

There's no way in hell that, it'll ruin my client's career

by making play Hitler.

So I don't think a lot of these people

actually got to see it and we were going to these actors

because at the time, you know, to make a film like this,

you know, you needed A-listers,

you needed big names to be able to sell these films.

What then happened is I went off and I made

What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople,

and Thor, I made three other films

and just left that script on ice

and by the time I came back to it

the whole cinematic landscape had changed

and you didn't need A-listers to sell your film anymore,

you actually just needed good films.

So Searchlight picked up the script and they said,

we wanna make it under one condition, that you play Hitler.

Poor Jojo.

What's wrong, little man?

Hi, Adolf.

Wanna tell me about that rabbit incident?

What was all that about?

They wanted me to kill it.

I'm sorry, I couldn't.

Don't worry about it, I couldn't care less.

But now they call me a scared rabbit.

Let them say whatever they want.

People used to say a lot of nasty things about me.

Oh, this guy's a lunatic.

Oh, look at that psycho, he's gonna get us all killed.

I swear to you, I swear,

I know this is gonna seem like a lie,

I had no intention of play in that character

when I wrote it, look at me.

I'm a brown supermodel, okay?

It doesn't make any sense.

What they said started to make sense in that

if you do get a massive actor to play Hitler

in a small film about two kids

and them overcoming their differences and intolerance

and trying to make a beautiful film about love it.

The whole thing gets overshadowed when you have, you know,

like a massive celebrity playing Hitler, you know.

Denzel Washington is Hitler, it's just not gonna work, mate.

Do not let her put you in a brain prison.

That, dear Jojo, is one thing that cannot

and must not ever, ever happen to a German.

Do not let your German brain be bossed around!

I won't let her bossy my German brain, mein fuhrer.

Try not to.

I did zero to no research about Hitler.

I remember looking up books about Hitler on Amazon,

I didn't wanna spend the money 'cause I was like,

outta principle, I don't wanna spend money on this asshole.

Then I was like, I don't even wanna read about him.

I don't care about his life,

I don't care about why he did things,

I don't care about what was behind,

the motives behind anything.

I just didn't care about him.

I also wanted to ridicule him, I wanted to lambast him,

you know, even beyond the grave,

I was hoping that, you know, somehow like,

you know, his spirit, what's left of it,

that I could somehow just humiliate him

and piss him off even more from the grave.

I created the character based on just like

ideas of like goofy best friend characters.

There's nothing from Drop Dead Fred in this but, you know,

that idea of this sort of like, or Beetlejuice, you know,

the idea of an annoying, fantasy best friend that a kid has.

It's gotta feel a little bit more in that vein

where it's like, it's in this kid's head.

It can't be a real depiction of Hitler

'cause, you know, it's also it's untrue.

It wouldn't be in a kid's fantasy idea of who someone is,

it's a fantasy, it would never be exactly like the person.

What We Do in the Shadows.

The point is, Deacon,

that you have not done the dishes for five years.

Vladislav is right,

it's unacceptable to have so many bloody dishes

all over this bench like that.

I'm so embarrassed when people come over here.

What does it matter?

You bring them over, you kill them.

Yeah.

Jemaine and I, I think started writing this

in around 2004 maybe.

We'd always intended to be in the film.

We shot a little short version of this thing

of What We Do in the Shadows in like 2005,

just to see like what the characters would be like,

if we could sustain something just even for 25 minutes

with these characters

and whether it would still be funny after 25 minutes

and then we cut that together

and sort of made this little thing.

And yeah, we realized, yeah,

we could probably like keep this idea going

for maybe an hour and a half if we were lucky.

We haven't washed this shower for about 20 years.

That is something that needs to be done weekly.

No, I know, I think, you know,

it's just hard for me because I used to be,

royalty for me to have to, you know,

take the corpse out of the dryer.

Over like the next sort of six years or so

we just like every couple of weeks a year

we would just like get back into it

and just reopen up the script.

Jemaine and I, the way that we work,

we would end up like doing maybe a page a year

and then we ended up with 150 pages.

So it took it 150 years to write the script,

like any real smart filmmakers, we didn't show anyone.

We just improvised the whole film.

Well, that didn't go so great.

I hit the main artery.

So yes, a real mess in there.

On the upside, I think she had a really good time.

Viago, I mean, I think just costume wise

kind of got that Mr. Darcy, sort of like

there's a little bit of Interview with a Vampire

kind of going on there.

But in terms of the character,

Viago's basically just a mixture of C3PO and my mother.

Just the anal vampire who can't stand mess

and wants everything to be structured

and needs to have a regiment

and has to make a chore wheel

so that everyone keep on top of

doing the dishes or vacuuming.

Deacon on dishes and it still hasn't moved in five years.

The only issues like when you're a vampire

and you live forever,

you can always put things off to the next day

so why bother cleaning on a Monday

when you can clean on a Tuesday, 10 years later.

If we'd all do our jobs, starting with a certain Deacon.

I will do my dishes! Good, then do them!

[Viago and Deacon hissing]

I mean, I always prefer to work with my friends.

On Shadows it was Jemaine and I,

we surrounded ourselves with all of our other friends,

you know, including Stu, who I went to high school with,

and Jackie I went to high school with,

I've known them since I was about 12 or 13.

Yeah, Stu was a flat mate of mine for years.

It's actually the best way of working,

'cause he can give each other shit,

you can like, you know, pick on each other.

And it's more like working with your family.

You don't have to beat around the bush with stuff,

you can just be honest, and yeah,

they're the people I trust the most when asking for feedback

or, you know, when I've got criticism,

I know that it's coming from a place of love

or they actually are concerned

about something in a scene or something.

So which is often, yeah, if you don't know someone

you're a bit wary.

And also actors are insane.

The Mandalorian.

[IG-11] Stop that.

[Stormtrooper] Identify yourself.

I am IG-11.

I am this child's nurse droid

and require that you remand him to me immediately.

[Stormtrooper] A nurse droid?

I thought it was a hunter.

Aren't IGs usually hunters.

[Stormtrooper] Evidently this one's a nurse.

IG-11 is a droid.

We don't say robot in the Star Wars universe,

'cause that's not appropriate.

He's a droid.

And it's a bounty hunter droid.

They're a bounty hunter droid

charged with in this particular,

you know, when we meet IG-11,

charged with finding Grogu, the baby.

The baby.

It's not a baby Yoda, we just gotta stop saying baby Yoda,

it's not baby Yoda.

[Stormtrooper] I'm sorry nurse,

but you're gonna have to get outta here.

[pistol blasts]

[IG-11] Are you refusing my request?

[Stormtrooper] No, I'm telling you to get out of here.

[bones snapping] [stormtrooper groaning]

[speeder bike thudding] [stormtrooper groaning]

[IG-11] That was unpleasant,

I'm sorry you had to see that.

It's again, my own accent.

I don't change my accent whenever I act,

you might have noticed.

Why bother?

There are way too many Americans in the world anyway,

way too American actors.

So you guys, you got that kind of an accent.

Very few new Zealanders.

That's the point of difference, I'm like a special little

sweet little thing that you find in the forest?

You go, what's this?

It's like a magical little curiosity.

That's my lane.

That's where I'm at and I've got that covered.

You guys stick to your lead acting, your lead role roles.

[Interviewer] You also directed

an episode of The Mandalorian.

What was it like for you to sort of jump into

the Star Wars universe

and play around in that kind of sandbox?

It was a very special thing for me

to do that Mandalorian episode.

The first day I think we were working

with about 70 stormtroopers and a Tie Fighter.

Yeah, I mean, I have to say,

it that was one of the highlights of,

not only my career, but my life,

was to be walking around directing stormtroopers.

And also to be able to work and be doing that episode

under the guidance of Favreau,

who became a friend and became someone

who's been very supportive of my work.

It was great because, you know, it was his idea,

he had written everything

and for me just to come in as a director,

when I didn't write it, wasn't my concept.

It was really nice just to kind of come in and go like,

well this is what I can offer you.

Like how can I like help with, you know,

keeping the flow of all the other episodes

and also what can I learn?

Whenever I work I want to learn something from someone

and I learned a lot on that one.

Free Guy.

Who could forget 2021's hit film, Free Guy,

in which I play the character Antwan,

who was, let's say kind of the bad guy.

Good morning people.

Ooh, you are fired.

There is some concern with the bloody zombies

retailers won't carry the game.

No, it's out, never even happened, next.

It's your lawyers, then you get your deposition scheduled.

Speak.

Which lawsuit are we talking about?

Millie, Millie Rusk?

No sweat, that will never see the inside of a courtroom

because she's got no fruit and her ex-partner works for me.

He owns a giant game company.

He's got it all, he's got the clothes, the fashion,

he's got the money again.

Again, one of my favorite types of characters,

he's a bit of an asshole and a bit of an idiot.

I love the idea of playing the CEO of this big company

and also having no idea what that meant

and, you know, I dunno anything about gaming.

And again, I was like,

should I do any research into this world?

It seems too hard.

Seems like there's too much to learn

and I don't, my brain is full.

So I didn't, I just played what I thought

a character like that should be like and.

When I'd play something I concentrate on like

just the kind of relatable, human elements

where it's like someone

who obviously was picked on his entire life

and finally got some cash and this pretty much tells it all.

They're always gonna be, you know, it's like this,

just like you got a chip on your shoulder

and you wanna prove things to people

and some people push it too far

and they just become major dicks.

IPs in quotes, that is the thing that people want.

Let me ask you a question. Okay.

You love Kentucky Fried Chicken, right?

Mm-hmm. No.

If you love Kentucky Fried Chicken

and I made Kentucky Fried Chicken

and I know that you love Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Why would I make another restaurant called, I don't know,

Albuquerque Boiled Turkey?

Okay, makes no sense, homie. No sense.

What am I gonna give you?

A sequel, Kentucky Fried chicka chicka, part two.

I didn't mean to improvise that much,

it's just whenever people laugh,

I mean, like I'm the sucker for that.

Cool, we're a team.

Hey, we should come up with a catch phrase.

All right. Okay, on three.

One, two, three. One, two, three-

Get back to work!

I'll just keep going until they tell me to stop.

But that was good, now those guys know how to die,

Sean knows how to feed someone who's improvising,

knows, you know, which way to direct them.

A lot of people think that improvising is just talking

and just saying the first thing that comes to your head

but actually it's you've gotta be aware

of what's happening in the scene

and where you're trying to get the scene to go to

and you've gotta be having a conversation with someone.

Most of improvising is listening to the other person

and just reacting to that.

But a lot of people want,

they've got some jokes in their head

that they really wanna say and they're not listening

to what you're talking or what you're saying,

they're just waiting for their turn to tell the joke.

But Sean's good at creating that conversation in a scene

where the improvising actually makes sense

and it actually works and is usable,

which is the main thing that you want.

Our Flag Means Death.

Blackbeard is basically me with a fake big beard

and fake wig on and all these leather clothes.

Guess what accent I'm doing?

Blackbeard, the original guy was from Bristol in England.

You know what that sounds like?

It sounds like Steven Merchant.

I can't even get close to what that sounds like,

Steven Merchant, he sounds a bit like that.

Can you imagine Blackbeard sounding like that?

I can't even do that accent and nor do I want to

spend my precious time learning how to.

Hello, everyone, I'm Blackbeard.

Huge fan, sir, huge.

Well, that's lovely,

but you don't need to say, sir, all right.

It's just Blackbeard.

Yes, sir, Blackbeard sir. Nice to meet you.

Hello, hey.

Nice to meet you, hi, how are ya?

I love all the rope, everyone's wearing rope.

Everyone's grubby as well, filthy!

Look at this bunch, wild characters on the high seas.

What I found out from the extensive research I did,

which was typing in Blackbeard into Wikipedia.

It says not much is known about him,

I said, that's all I need to know.

We're done, we're done here.

I don't need to be authentic,

there's no one that's gonna pick on me for getting it wrong.

No one knew anything about him.

They say his name maybe have been Edward Teach.

There are other names that were given to him,

they say maybe he come from Bristol,

maybe he actually grew up in Jamaica.

No one knows anything about him.

So that's open season on that character, I have to tell you,

so I could do whatever I wanted.

he could have been from New Zealand, no one fuckin' knew.

It was just more fun to be able to play him

as like, you know, kind of like a grumpy version of me

or like one of my uncles growing up, you know,

I've grown up around a lot of Blackbeards.

There's something about that character as well

that I appreciated in that it's about someone

who's been doing something for about 20 years,

he's got really good at it.

Every wants him to keep going, but he is just getting

slowly more progressively pissed off with the industry

and over it.

If you were to show me the ways of an aristocrat,

I could probably show you a thing or two

about being a bloodthirsty pirate.

Wouldn't that be something.

You serious?

So Reese and I have worked together,

we've known each other for, I mean, over 20 years.

We've always worked well together.

There's just a sort of synchronicity

and a connection between our brains

and the way that we act or improvise

where we always seem in tune.

Our Flag Means Death, that was no different.

We, you know, came in and we slotted into our roles

and it was interesting for us as two old friends

playing two people who were in love,

you know, on the high seas and the 1700s.

That's a lovely piece of silk you have there.

This dirty old thing.

Well, sometimes the old things are the best things.

May I?

There we go.

Look at that.

You wear fine things well.

It's just weird to kind of pretend

that you're romantically interested in your old friend.

But then all the scenes that we did together

were my favorite ones because we just got to play

and just, you know, sit around and just play with words.

Look at that, there's one, two, nine guns all over him.

Nine guns?

It's too-

I have, I have one gun and one knife,

just like everyone else.

So far I've played this, you know,

ridiculous, effeminate vampire based on my mum,

Hitler, I've played my dad in a film,

I've played a hot priest twice, but they were brothers.

So it wasn't the same character.

Blackbeard, asshole owner of a game tech company.

Droid.

So every single one has been pretty different.

That makes me happy because I just don't wanna ever feel

like if I'm repeating myself too much,

and even with my filmmaking,

I feel like the charm or like the magic

started to go out of what I'm doing.

So my decisions really are based on,

and even when I'm making films, it's like,

what's gonna keep me interested?

What makes me feel nervous?

It's just about continuing to keep myself interested.

And I mean, the reason I really, if I'm honest,

getting into any of this,

is so I could just play different roles

and do, you know, and just play around.