Taika Waititi - Screentalk Interview

An 2009 interview with NZ filmmaker Taika Waititi – director of Boy, Two Cars, One Night, Tama Tū, and Eagle vs Shark

Taika Waititi (sometimes credited as Taika Cohen) is of Te-Whānau-ā-Apanui descent and hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast. He grew up on the East Coast and in Wellington, and attended Victoria University as an arts student.

Waititi started out as an actor, garnering an NZ Film Awards’ Best Actor nomination after playing lothario flatmate Alex in Scarfies (1999). He also appeared in TV series The Strip (2002) and road movie Snakeskin.

Waititi has also won acclaim for his painting, photography, design and stand-up comedy. In 1999, as one half of comedy duo Humourbeasts, with Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame), he won the Billy T comedy award.

Tiring of the film roles he was being offered – which often involved playing comic relief - Waititi decided he “had to make my own stories”. His award-winning streak as a filmmaker began with the release of 2003 short Two Cars, One Night. A sweet, understated love story set in the car park outside a pub, Two Cars was a huge hit on the international film festival circuit. It won eight awards, including Best Short Film at the Berlin, Seattle, Oberhausen, Hamburg and AFI festivals.

In 2005, Two Cars, One Night was nominated for Best Live Action Short at the Academy Awards. During the ceremony, when his nomination was announced, Waititi gained instant notoriety – and a little animosity – by feigning sleep.

Waititi cemented his success with the short film Tama Tū (2005), centered around a troop of soldiers from the Māori Battalion during World War II. The film picked up festival prizes in Stockholm, Sundance, Indianapolis and Berlin.

In 2007, Waititi released his first feature Eagle vs Shark. The film shed the Māori-influenced humour of his early work in favour of deadpan geek chic. Eagle vs Shark is an offbeat comedy about two lonely misfits and their bumbling attempts to find love. The script was work-shopped at the prestigious Sundance Institute Directors Lab.

The feature starred Loren Horsley (based on a character she had originated) and Waititi’s one-time Humourbeasts partner Jemaine Clement. Eagle vs Shark went on to win Best Screenplay at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, Best Feature at the Newport International Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2007. On the eve of the film’s debut screening at the Sundance Film Festival, Variety magazine named Waititi as one of 10 directors to watch.

In 2006, Waititi was made a NZ Arts Foundation ‘New Generation’ Laureate. The following year he would helm the first of four episodes of Flight of the Conchords (including the final episode).

Waititi began writing his second feature, Boy (working titles Choice and The Volcano) long before Eagle vs Shark. The rite-of-passsage tale explores some of the characters and ideas introduced in his short Two Cars, One Night and revolves around an 11-year-old boy who spins fantasies about his ex-con father (played by Waititi).

After winning a place at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, Boy was awarded Grand Prize in the Generation Section, one of the festival’s five sub-sections devoted to new features (Generation’s remit is to present “lively cinema aimed at young audiences”). Boy was also one of only 14 films to make it into the Sundance Film Festival’s ‘World Cinema’ section, and a double award-winner at the 2010 Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam.

Within four weeks of its New Zealand release, Boy had grossed $4 million, pushing it ahead of Sione’s Wedding as the most successful Kiwi comedy released on home soil. After another four weeks it had overtaken The World’s Fastest Indian as the most successful local film in the country’s history (not accounting for inflation). Later he mounted a successful crowdfunding campaign to aid Boy‘s release in the United States, where it won impressive reviews.

At the Qantas Film and Television Awards in September 2010, Waititi scored a triple header by winning awards for best director, screenplay and supporting actor (Boy joined Bad Taste as one of the only Kiwi features in which the director also took one of the leading roles onscreen). Alongside its best film gong, Boy also won Qantas awards for its cinematography, editing and music.

Waititi’s plans to attend Boy‘s March 2010 Kiwi premiere were abandoned, after he won the chance to fly to New Orleans and “pursue my dream of becoming the next Cliff Curtis“. Waititi had won a role as the Inuit sidekick to superhero The Green Lantern (not to be confused with Seth Rogen’s Green Hornet). The film is directed by NZ-born Martin Campbell.

These days Waititi’s career has become an extended case of ocean-hopping. Back home, he acted alongside members of the Naked Samoans in sketch show Radiradira, and directed for semi-improvised Madeleine Sami comedy series Super City (which debuted in February 2011). The show showcases Sami portraying five very different characters. Around the same time in Florida, Waititi began directing an American TV movie inspired by Bafta-nominated sitcom The Inbetweeners. The film is about four teenage boys who are caught between being cool and geeky. In April 2012 website Deadline announced that Waititi would be directing an adaptation of Super City for American network ABC, with Sami again writing and directing.

Waititi has directed commercials in both the United Kingdom and the United States, including an extravagant underwater-set promo for the London Olympics for Cadbury, scored to Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the Best’. He also helmed a musical promo showcasing the major stars of American network NBC, which screened in a high-rating telecast of the 2012 Super Bowl.

Sources include
Nellie Andreeva, ‘ABC Greenlights Comedy Presentation ‘ Super City’. Deadline website. Loaded 24 April 2012. Accessed 26 April 2012
Chris Keall, ‘Boy’ takes New York’. National Business Review website. 17 March 2012. Accessed 26 April 2012
Rick Kissell, ‘UPDATEhttp://preview.nzonscreen.com/admin_new/people/663/edit: Super Bowl sets viewership record’ - Variety, 6 February 2012
‘Green Lantern v red carpet’ – NZ Herald, 18 March 2010