Taika Waititi

Taika David Cohen ONZM (born 16 August 1975), known professionally as Taika Waititi /ˈtaɪkə waɪˈtiːti/ (

Waititi's 2004 short film Two Cars, One Night earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. He co-wrote, co-directed and starred in the horror comedy film What We Do in the Shadows (2014) with Jemaine Clement, which was adapted into a television series of the same name (2019–present). The series has been nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. His most recent directing credits include the superhero film Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and the black comedy film Jojo Rabbit (2019), the latter of which he also wrote and starred in as an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler. Jojo Rabbit received six Academy Award nominations and won for Best Adapted Screenplay. Waititi also earned a Grammy Award for producing the film's soundtrack. In addition to directing an episode of the television series The Mandalorian (2019–present), he also voices the character IG-11, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance.

Taika David Cohen was born in Raukokore in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island, and grew up in both the East Coast and the Aro Valley of Wellington. His father was an artist of Te Whānau-ā-Apanui descent, whilst his mother, Robin Cohen, is a schoolteacher. Waititi stated that his mother's family were Russian Jews "mixed with a bit of Irish" and other European ancestry, while his father's side was "Māori and a little bit of French Canadian". Waititi describes himself as a "Polynesian Jew", although he has stated that he never grew up in an "actively practising Jewish household".

Waititi's parents split up when he was around five, and he was raised primarily by his mother. He attended Onslow College, then studied theatre at Victoria University of Wellington where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1997. He originally used his mother's surname, Cohen, for his work in film and writing, and his father's, Waititi, for visual arts endeavours. Following the success of his first short film, he continued to use Waititi professionally.

Early career

While a student at Victoria University, Waititi was part of the five-member ensemble So You're a Man, which toured New Zealand and Australia with some success. He was half of the comedy duo The Humourbeasts alongside Jemaine Clement, which received New Zealand's highest comedy accolade, the Billy T Award, in 1999. Among a variety of artistic interests, Waititi began making comical short films for New Zealand's annual 48-hour film contest. His short film Two Cars, One Night earned him an Academy Award nomination in 2005. At the awards ceremony, he famously feigned falling asleep as the nominations were being read. His first feature film, a romantic comedy called Eagle vs Shark, was released in U.S. theatres for limited distribution in 2007. It stars Waititi's then-real-life partner, Loren Horsley. That year, Waititi wrote and directed one episode of the TV show Flight of the Conchords and directed another.

His second feature, Boy, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Waititi also took one of the main roles, as the ex-con father who returns to his family. On its release in New Zealand, Boy received enthusiastic reviews and was successful at the local box office, eclipsing several records. Following the film's success, Waititi hoped its signature track, "Poi E", would get to #1 (for the second time) on the New Zealand charts. It reached #3, but became #1 on iTunes. In 2011, Waititi directed New Zealand TV series Super City starring Madeleine Sami, who plays five characters living in one city. That year, Waititi portrayed Thomas Kalmaku in the superhero film Green Lantern.

2013–2019: Recognition

In 2013, Waititi co-wrote, co-directed and acted in the vampire comedy mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows with Clement. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014. Waititi and Clement played members of a group of vampires who live in an appropriately gothic house in modern-day Wellington. A television adaptation of the film was commissioned in May 2018, with Waititi as an executive producer and director. The series of the same name premiered on FX in March 2019; its second season received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series.

Waititi's fourth feature, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. When it was released in New Zealand, the comedy adventure broke Waititi's own record for a New Zealand film in its opening weekend. Based on a book by Barry Crump, it centres on a young boy (played by Julian Dennison) and a grumpy man (played by Sam Neill) on the run in the forest. Waititi wrote the initial screenplay for the 2016 Disney film Moana, which focused on gender and family. Those elements were passed over in favour of what became the final story.

In 2017, Waititi won the award for New Zealander of the Year, but was unable to receive it in person due to work commitments. That year, he directed his first major studio film, Marvel Studios's Thor: Ragnarok, which was released in October. He also portrayed Korg, a Kronan, via motion capture in the film. He had previously directed a short film series for Marvel called Team Thor, chronicling the lives of Thor and his roommate, Darryl Jacobson. Thor: Ragnarok earned critical praise and was successful at the box office. Waititi was later consulted by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely on Thor's storylines for Avengers: Infinity War, to maintain the character's consistency in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In 2019, Waititi wrote and directed Jojo Rabbit, based on the book Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, the 1940s-set story of a child in the Hitler Youth whose mother is secretly hiding a Jewish girl in their home. Waititi plays Adolf Hitler as the boy's imaginary friend. Waititi received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. He won the latter, making him the first person of Māori descent to win an Academy Award in a screenplay category, and the first indigenous person to be nominated for and win Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2021 he won the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media as a producer of the Jojo Rabbit soundtrack.

In October 2018, Lucasfilm announced that Waititi would be one of the directors of the Star Wars live-action streaming series The Mandalorian, which tells the story of a lone Mandalorian gunfighter in the period between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. The series premiered on 12 November 2019; Waititi also voices a droid bounty hunter named IG-11 in the series. He directed the series' first-season finale, "Chapter 8: Redemption". His voiceover work earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance in 2020.

2020–present: Recent career

In 2020, Waititi narrated a charity reading of James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. He portrayed Ratcatcher in the DC superhero film The Suicide Squad, released in August 2021 to positive reviews. Waititi created the comedy series Reservation Dogs, which chronicles the lives of a group of indigenous Oklahoma teens, and comprises a main cast, directors, producers, and writers of indigenous peoples. It premiered on FX to positive reviews.

Waititi will write and direct the superhero film Thor: Love and Thunder, a sequel to Thor: Ragnarok. Principal photography finished in June 2021; it is scheduled for May 2022 release. He will also direct a feature film adaptation of the documentary Next Goal Wins. He is set to direct a live-action film adaptation of Akira, co-write a sequel to What We Do in the Shadows titled We're Wolves, and direct and co-write a live-action Star Wars film.

Waititi is attached to write, direct and executive produce two animated series for Netflix based on Roald Dahl's children's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel, one adapting the novels and the other focused on the novel's Oompa Loompa characters. He is set to executive produce and direct the Showtime limited series The Auteur, and to executive produce and star as Blackbeard in the HBO Max comedy series Our Flag Means Death. He is also slated to write and direct a film based on Flash Gordon for 20th Century Studios.

In November 2021, it was announced that Waititi will adapt The Incal into a feature film.

Waititi married New Zealand filmmaker Chelsea Winstanley in 2011. They have two daughters. He and Winstanley separated in 2018.

Waititi incorporates his Māori heritage into his projects, such as by including "Indigenous attachments" and conducting a Welcome to Country ceremony during the start of filming. He is an executive producer of the New Zealand films The Breaker Upperers (2018), Baby Done (2020), and Night Raiders (2021), all directed by Māori or indigenous filmmakers.

Film

Executive producer

• The Breaker Upperers (2018)
• Baby Done (2020)
• Night Raiders (2021)

Short films

Film acting roles

Other works

Television

Television acting roles

Music videos

Commercials

Waititi has also been a prolific commercial director. He directed Air New Zealand's "The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made" featuring Peter Jackson and Elijah Wood as they go through where The Lord of the Rings films were shot. The commercial went viral amassing over 19 million views on YouTube. Waititi directed Tesco's "Borg," which features a comical Thor-esque character shopping in the supermarket; he went on to direct Marvel Studios' Thor: Ragnarok years later.

Frequent collaborators

Actor	Eagle vs Shark (2007)	Boy (2010)	What We Do in the Shadows (2014)	Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)	Thor: Ragnarok (2017)	Jojo Rabbit (2019)	Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)	Notes
Jemaine Clement								Clement and Waititi also worked together on television series Flight of the Conchords, Radiradirah and Wellington Paranormal, and Clement has a voice role in Moana, a film for which Waititi wrote the initial screenplay.
Rachel House								House also has a voice role in Moana, a film for which Waititi wrote the initial screenplay.
Stu Rutherford								Co-invented a lighting system used on certain scenes in Thor: Ragnarok
Cohen Holloway
Craig Hall
Rhys Darby								Darby and Waititi also worked together on television series Flight of the Conchords and Radiradirah
Cori Gonzalez-Macuer
Oscar Kightley								Kightley and Waititi also worked together on the television series Super City and Radiradirah
Mike Minogue
Sam Neill
Chris Hemsworth
Tessa Thompson

Critical response

Box office performance

Waititi has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and nominations for the Golden Globe Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards among others. In 2005, Waititi received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for the short film Two Cars, One Night (2004). In 2019, he released the comedy-drama film Jojo Rabbit, which was met with critical acclaim and earned him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture, the Golden Globe Award for Best Musical or Comedy Film and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing in a Feature Film. For the soundtrack of the film, he won the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.

Since 2019, he has written and produced the television series What We Do in the Shadows, based on the 2014 film of the same name, for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series.

In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, Waititi was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to film.