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5 things you should know about Taika Waititi

Taika Waititi, the Kiwi actor/writer/director whose films include the spiky Eagle Vs. Shark, the gentle Boy and the goofy vampire mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows, has a new movie. In Hunt For The Wilderpeople, a misfit orphan (Julian Dennison) and his adoptive uncle (Sam Neill) are on the run from the authorities in the New Zealand bush. In advance of its Toronto opening this week, Waititi chatted about it from Australia’s Gold Coast, where he’s working on a little picture called Thor: Ragnarok.

1. He’s New Zealand’s most successful filmmaker

Sure, that Peter Jackson guy does okay for himself, but it’s Waititi, not PJ, who’s topped his homeland’s box office not once, but twice. Hunt For The Wilderpeople is the current record-holder, “surpassing Boy, which had held that distinction up until now,” he says. “I think it’s because parents can take their parents as well as their children you get three generations of people going to the cinema together.”

2.  He likes to put actors together just to see what happens

Waititi cast Sam Neill and Julian Dennison as Wilderpeople’s mismatched heroes without worrying about chemistry reads or auditions. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to work,” he says, “but in my mind I thought, ‘Oh, it’ll be fine if they hate each other, too.’ I got them together, and they hit it off – Sam finds Julian hilarious, and Julian finds Sam really interesting, I think. They’re a bit of an odd couple, but they have a really deep respect for each other. It’s beautiful to see this generational friendship.”

3. He really loves messing with Sam Neill

If it took you a second to recognize Neill – beloved by audiences for his performances in films like The Hunt For Red October and Jurassic Park – that’s because Waititi had a master plan to remake his star for Wilderpeople. “Part of the appeal for me was changing his hairstyle,” he laughs. “Everybody knows Sam Neill’s hair, that Sam Neill side part. I wanted to get rid of that.” Waititi also talked the actor into grizzling up, complete with a scraggly beard – “And now he’s kept the beard! He’s done more roles with the beard!”

4. He’s about to take over the world

What We Do In The Shadows, the supernatural mockumentary Waititi made with his old friend Jemaine Clement, was a cult hit last year. And Waititi also wrote Disney’s next animated adventure, Moana, which opens this fall, and is directing Ragnarok. “All the things I’ve been working on over the years have started converging,” he says. “With Boy, I wrote the first draft in 2003, but we didn’t shoot it until 2009 Shadows, we came up with the idea in 2005 but didn’t shoot it until 2012. Wilderpeople, I wrote the first draft in 2005, so there’s a lot of space in between coming up with these things and then actually executing them.” 

5. Scaling up has been surprisingly easy

Asked if he’s feeling the pressure tackling the cosmic adventure of Ragnarok, Waititi doesn’t hesitate. “No!” he says with a happy chirp. “It’s really weird, I don’t feel any pressure. It’s just as easy as my tiny films.” He waits a beat, then laughs. “I don’t know if I should be worried about that.”

Don’t miss our review of Hunt For The Wilderpeople.

normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner

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