Taika Waititi
Music - it's motivational and just makes you relax.Collection: Motivational
My favourite kind of comedy comes from the awkwardness of living, the stuff that makes you cringe but borders on tragic - that is more interesting to me. It resonates; it comes from emotional truth.Collection: Truth
'Boy' was about my dad.Collection: Dad
My father is a visual artist, so I was influenced by him, and my mother is an English teacher who forced me to read a lot of books and poetry and get involved in theatre. I developed a varied taste for different arts.Collection: Teacher
New Zealand was such a weird place in the 1980s. For instance, we used to have this commercial in the late 1970s where this guy drives this car and stops outside a corner store. He goes in to buy something, and when he comes out, his car is gone. He's like, 'Huh?' Then a voice says, 'Don't leave your keys in the car.'Collection: Car
I wish I was less good-looking and more unpopular. Then I could get into politics and use my pent-up resentment about being ugly and unpopular to systematically destroy the country.Collection: Politics
Maori get pigeonholed into the idea they're spiritual and telling stories like 'Whale Rider' and 'Once Were Warriors,' quite serious stuff, but we're pretty funny people, and we never really have had an opportunity to show that side of ourselves, the clumsy, nerdy side of ourselves, which is something I am.Collection: Funny
My favorite was 'The Lost Boys.' Corey Haim wore this trench coat, and I made my mum buy me a trench coat. I wore it to school, to primary school.
We've got a thing called the 'tall poppy syndrome' in New Zealand, where if anyone is doing really well, it's quite common to try and bring them down - like, cut them down and say, 'You've been to the moon? So what? I mean, plenty of people have been to the moon.'
At the end of the day, the reality is we're all losers, and we're all uncoordinated. We're the worst of all of the animals on earth, and there's something quite endearing about that.
Indigenous people in films, it's all, like, nose flutes and panpipes and, you know, people talking to ghosts... which I hate.
People overcoming the odds is actually a really important part of humanity, and I don't think we kind of get to celebrate that as much as we should.
I come from a country whose idea of masculinity is quite extreme, and I've grown up around a lot of that energy. I've been part of that a lot. And it's very draining; it's quite tiring trying to be macho.
We all have to remember that New Zealand is built on these kind of people who are rebels and renegades, people doing it their own way, fighting for freedom, and braving the elements. I think it's cool to celebrate that.
I find that a lot of child actors are ruined once they've done a job.
The stuff I'm passionate about is what I write; it isn't multi-million-dollar franchise movies.
'Eagle vs Shark' is a little film I could take risks with and make mistakes on.
You can have integrity with your art, but worrying about integrity doesn't pay the bills.
My world is not spectacle and explosion. It's two people talking.
My style of working is I'll often be behind the camera, or right next to the camera yelling words at people, like, 'Say this, say this! Say it this way!' I'll straight-up give Anthony Hopkins a line reading. I don't care.
I did roles that I hated, and there were roles that were detrimental to my acting ability. There were roles that I was always doing that were always the comic relief... it was destroying my soul.
One of my favourite books when I was young was 'Wuthering Heights.'
If someone asked, 'What are your films like?,' the best I can come up with is that they're, like, a fine balance between comedy and drama. And they deal mainly with the clumsiness of humanity.
I think... part of life skills is also socialising... I think many people make the mistake of not going out... You can spend a little bit too much time with your nose in your book or with your fingers on a keyboard, and you miss out.
Most of my films - if you look at the tone, apart from 'Shadows,' which is straight-up comedy - the tone is a mix between comedy and pathos, and I really love that.
I play music all the time because silence freaks me out.
I really like arcade games and like the '80s and early '90s kind of games, just because there's a real kind of naivete to them, but there's like a real inventiveness to it as well.
I'm not interested in doing work that doesn't captivate me.
'Eagle vs Shark' was about keeping myself sane. I wanted to go back to my comedy roots with people I trusted and had worked with before and do something low-budget and more experimental.
My job is to express myself.
To me, spending millions of dollars recreating the world's sadness with actors and props and sets - it seems like a kind of arrogant waste of money... Unless, that is, it's a film about an historical event.
I love films that make you feel something but also deliver that payload behind jokes.
I find that relationships between kids and parents are very interesting.
Within the family unit, you have people you grew up with who are supposed to be your brother, father, or your mother who are almost like strangers and acquaintances.
I've always said that, first and foremost, I make films for New Zealanders. They're my target audience. Then after that, if people appreciate my stories from outside this country, then that's an added bonus.
I don't like laughing at people unless they're in a privileged position or if they're in authority. If it's poor people or people who live on the outskirts or on the margins, or the underdog, I'd rather be laughing with them.
I had a country upbringing in a predominantly Maori community, and that contrasted with a very multi-cultured arts community in the Aro Valley in Wellington: growing up around a lot of theatre and poets and writers and stuff.
A set should be like a family, except that you all actually like each other.
Kids are always very savvy. It doesn't take long for a kid to realize when an adult is a loser.
In a lot of my films, the biggest theme is family, making families out of those around you.
I was depressed about the roles that were on offer, so I had to make my own stories.
Anyone who has a parent can relate to this idea of not quite understanding who your parents are or making up stories about them.
I think I'm a better filmmaker than actor, so I already know that. That's OK. I can handle not being a famous actor.
I don't mind going from sadness to comedy in a split-second or mixing the two up.
In my films, a lot of the situations come from real life.
I daydream all the time.
Nothing could be more restrictive than working with people in advertising.
I've been on a lot of film sets, and I've always promised myself I wouldn't create a set where people dread coming to work.
Shooting a movie should be fun! It's not a real job. It can be hard, but at the end of the day, we're dressing up and playing pretend.
I think something that every actor wants, whether they've done four movies or forty movies, is they want to find the work interesting. You want to come to work and think this is going to be a challenge.