Taika Waititi is a very talented and well-known filmmaker known for his work in massively successful projects like Free Guy, What We Do in the Shadows, Our Flag Means Death, and most famously, perhaps, his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Thor: Love and Thunder and Thor: Ragnarok, as well as playing the character of Korg in the series. He has made a name for himself through his unique films, having the perfect balance of excellent storytelling and, at the same time, having some of the most hilarious comedies of all time.
His most famous work outside of the MCU has to be Jojo Rabbit, a film starring Scarlett Johansson which won Waititi an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Not only did he direct and write this film, but he was also part of the cast, playing the role of the most hated historical figure to this date, Adolf Hitler. When any real-life person is used as a character in a film, one of the first things anyone does is learn as much as they can about that person. This was not the case with Waititi, who did absolutely no research on the dictator.
Taika Waititi Didn’t Do Any Research On Hitler for Jojo Rabbit
During an interview where Taika Waititi went into great detail about all of his past works, he revealed what it was like writing about Adolf Hitler in the script as well as while playing the character. Surprisingly enough, he mentioned that while doing so, he did absolutely no research about the dictator. Elaborating on this, he mentioned that initially, he did look up books about him online, however, he backed out from that very quickly.
“I did zero to no research about Hitler. I remember looking up books about Hitler on Amazon. I didn’t want to spend the money ’cause I was like, out of principle, I don’t want to spend money on the a**hole. Then I was like, I don’t even want to read about him. I don’t care about his life. I don’t care why he did things. I don’t care about the motives behind anything. I just don’t care about him.”
Taika Waititi Wanted To Make A Joke Out Of Hitler
“I also wanted to ridicule him. I wanted to lambast him you know, even beyond the grave. I was hoping that you know, somehow like, you know, his spirit, what’s left of it, that I could somehow just humiliate him and piss him off even more from the grave.”
Source: GQ
