1. Taika Waititi co-wrote, co-directed and starred in the horror comedy film What We Do in the Shadows with Jemaine Clement, which was adapted into a television series of the same name in 2019.
52 Facts About Taika Waititi
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Taika Waititi's directing credits include the superhero films, Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder, as well as the black comedy film Jojo Rabbit, the last of which he wrote and starred in as an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler.
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Taika Waititi earned a Grammy Award for producing the film's soundtrack.
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Taika Waititi David Cohen was born on 16 August 1975 in Wellington, and grew up in Wellington's Aro Valley suburb and Raukokore, a small town in the Bay of Plenty.
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Taika Waititi's father was an artist of Te Whanau-a-Apanui descent, while his mother, Robin Cohen, was a schoolteacher of multiple ethnicities.
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Taika Waititi's mother's paternal grandfather was a Russian Jew whose family came from Novozybkov, Russia.
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Taika Waititi stated that his mother's family were Russian Jewish, Irish, and other European ethnicities, while his father's side was "Maori and a little bit of French Canadian".
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Taika Waititi's parents divorced when he was around five, and he was raised primarily by his mother.
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Taika Waititi attended Onslow College, then studied theatre at Victoria University of Wellington where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1997.
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Taika Waititi originally used his mother's surname, Cohen, for his work in film and writing, and his father's, Waititi, for visual arts endeavours.
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Taika Waititi directed the short film Two Cars, One Night which involves two young boys and a girl meeting in the carpark of a rural pub in Te Kaha, New Zealand.
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Taika Waititi's first feature film was a romantic comedy, Eagle vs Shark.
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That year, Taika Waititi wrote and directed one episode of the TV show Flight of the Conchords and directed another.
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Taika Waititi took one of the main roles, as the ex-con father who returns to his family.
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In 2011, Taika Waititi directed New Zealand TV series Super City starring Madeleine Sami, who plays five characters living in one city.
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That year, Taika Waititi portrayed Thomas Kalmaku in the superhero feature film Green Lantern.
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In 2013, Taika Waititi co-wrote, co-directed and acted in the vampire comedy mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows with Clement.
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Taika Waititi wrote the initial screenplay for the 2016 Disney film Moana, which focused on gender and family.
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In 2017, Taika Waititi won the award for New Zealander of the Year, but was unable to receive it in person due to work commitments.
20.
Taika Waititi portrayed the alien Korg via motion capture in the film.
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Taika Waititi had previously directed a short film series for Marvel called Team Thor, chronicling the lives of Thor and his roommate, Darryl Jacobson.
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Taika 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.
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In 2019, Taika 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.
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Taika Waititi plays a buffoonish version of Adolf Hitler as the boy's imaginary friend.
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Taika Waititi received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Taika Waititi won the latter, making him the first person of Maori descent to win an Academy Award in a screenplay category, and the first indigenous person to be nominated for and win Best Adapted Screenplay.
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In October 2018, Lucasfilm announced that Taika 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.
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Taika Waititi directed the series' first-season finale, "Chapter 8: Redemption".
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In 2020, Taika Waititi narrated a charity reading of James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.
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Taika Waititi portrayed Ratcatcher in the DC superhero film The Suicide Squad, released in August 2021 to positive reviews.
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Taika Waititi executive produced, directed and starred as Blackbeard in the HBO Max comedy series Our Flag Means Death.
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Taika Waititi voiced Mo Morrison in the Pixar film Lightyear.
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Taika Waititi wrote and directed the superhero film Thor: Love and Thunder, a sequel to Thor: Ragnarok.
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Taika Waititi directed a feature film adaptation of the documentary Next Goal Wins prior to directing Thor: Love and Thunder.
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In 2024, Taika Waititi directed and co-wrote the pilot episode of a television adaptation of the Terry Gilliam film, Time Bandits, alongside frequent collaborators Jemaine Clement and Iain Morris.
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In 2024, Taika Waititi directed the pilot and executive produced a television adaptation of the Charles Yu novel, Interior Chinatown, starring Jimmy O Yang.
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In 2017, Taika Waititi stated he was working on a sequel to What We Do In The Shadows titled We're Wolves.
38.
That same year, Taika Waititi entered talks to direct a live-action film adaptation of Akira.
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Taika Waititi was officially confirmed as director and co-writer with Michael Golamco in 2019, with a release date of 21 May 2021.
40.
In 2020, Taika Waititi was announced to be 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.
41.
In 2023, reports stated that Taika Waititi was looking to star in the film.
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The next month, Kennedy stated that Taika Waititi's film is still in development and that he was now writing the film alone.
43.
Taika Waititi was in a relationship with New Zealand actress and writer Loren Horsley for ten years.
44.
Taika Waititi co-wrote and acted in his directorial debut, Eagle vs Shark.
45.
Taika Waititi met New Zealand film producer Chelsea Winstanley in 2010.
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Taika Waititi has been in a relationship with British singer Rita Ora since 2021.
47.
Taika Waititi is an executive producer of the New Zealand films The Breaker Upperers, Baby Done, and Night Raiders, all directed by Maori or indigenous filmmakers.
48.
In 2023, Taika Waititi was the executive producer on Frybread Face and Me, a film directed by Billy Luther.
49.
In 2024, Taika Waititi was executive producer on We Were Dangerous directed by Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu.
50.
Taika Waititi has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and nominations for the Golden Globe Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards, among others.
51.
Together with Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi won the Billy T Award in 1999.
52.
In 2005, Taika Waititi received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for the short film Two Cars, One Night.