Emerging to widespread critical acclaim in 2010 with his second feature-film, Boy — a comedic coming-of-age tale, spiked with sobering absent-father themes — Waititi steadily became a celebrated figure across his native country of New Zealand. Becoming the highest-grossing local film in the country’s box-office history, Boy paved the way for Waititi to flex his comedy muscles.
Now, a decade after the release of Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and with the anticipated sci-fi adaptation Klara and the Sun on the near horizon, Radio Times spoke to Waititi for our Film Flashbacks series, discussing everything from his very first on-set memories to his collaboration with the late Sam Neill.
My earliest memories of watching films, my mother took me to see The Wiz, which was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life — which is The Wizard of Oz with all the Motown singers. Michael Jackson is playing the Scarecrow. It's a really messed up film for a little kid.
I loved growing up in the '70s. Now, as a grown-up, knowing that it was actually a pretty special time because no one cared about kids, and they didn't care what we did. They didn't check in on us. It's like, it's a miracle any of us lived.
Because they were stoner parents, and they were just like, "Let's go see Motown people doing The Wizard of Oz." And, like, the makeup and all the costumes were just, like, bits of makeup peeling off their faces and stuff. It was kind of a nightmare movie.
Ralph Bakshi!
Are you a big Bakshi fan?
So were your parents kind of big cinema heads?
They took me to see Gallipoli at, like, eight. Do you know how long that movie is? And it's like nothing happens, and then the hero gets his chest blasted apart in the last shot. All to... Vangelis? Is that who does the... No, it's Jean-Michel Jarre is the soundtrack. It's like synth, weird, crazy '70s synths.
Not really a positive memory then, The Wiz?
That was not a positive thing for me. I hated that. But now I would probably love it.
Oh, that didn't happen till I was late 20s that I wanted to make films.
ET [the Extra-Terrestrial] Yeah. I think ET was one of the times... It was the first time I cried in a movie. Yeah. And I didn't understand what was happening. I could not believe that a movie could make you cry, especially a child. And I was like, "What's this s**t coming out of my face?"
When the flowers come alive again, and he, like, lives. I mean, I was crying when he died, but I cried more when he — more tears of joy — that he was back. And yeah, I think it was the first time I'd ever seen the most beloved character in the movie die. And when you're a kid, when you're a little kid, you can't believe that in a movie they could bring someone back. So that was pretty amazing.
Were there any particular directors or actors that you really looked up to at the time?
And that was a sort of the next wave of people. I was more the '80s where it was all like, I mean, Michael J Fox, I would've seen anything that he was in.
My first acting thing on film was a commercial for butter, and I played a waiter.
Mainland Butter. It's actually great butter. They're still made today. It's going strong. We make great butter in New Zealand. Kerrygold's a good butter… I'm not sure too much about the British butters.
The French butters are not bad. Too salty sometimes. But New Zealand butter, that's the way to go.
View oEmbed on the source websiteThe butter. It was incredible butter, we sold a lot that year.
And I just remember being on set and thinking, "This is fun what I'm doing, but those guys over there seem to be having way more fun."
I'd acted in a movie, and I thought I did pretty well. It was a movie called Scarfies, which is a slang term for ‘students’ in New Zealand, and that was kind of like a New Zealand version of Shallow Grave, and had a lot of fun with that.
And so I wrote my first short film in a G-string in the green room, surrounded by dudes doing pull-ups. And that film went on to become nominated for an Oscar, and that's how my film career started.
Throughout your career, Rachel House has played a prominent role, what is it that you really love about working with her?
She's also helped a lot and she helped to coach all the kids on my films in Boy, Jojo Rabbit, this [Hunt for the Wilderpeople] as well, she would help, you know, get them prepped for the scenes, as well have to learn her scenes as well. She did too much work, but we don't remind her of that.
View Green Video on the source websiteI remember him saying, "Uh, when are we wrapping?" quite a lot and [laughs] — I do remember… one of my favourite things is... 'cause he has a vineyard called Two Paddocks, and beautiful red wines and stuff that they make.
He was just very generous and just wanted everyone to have fun and have a good time and to be happy, and so that's my resounding memory.
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