Taika Waititi facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Taika Waititi ONZM
Waititi at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	Taika David Cohen (1975-08-16) 16 August 1975 (age 49) Wellington, New Zealand
Education	Victoria University of Wellington (BA)
Occupation	Director producer screenwriter actor comedian
Years active	1999–present
Works	Filmography
Spouse(s)	Chelsea Winstanley ​ ​ (m. 2011; div. 2018)​ Rita Ora ​ (m. 2022)​
Children	2
Awards	Full list
Signature

Taika Waititi (born August 16, 1975) is a famous filmmaker, actor, and comedian from New Zealand. He is well-known for making funny and unique comedy films. He has also become a voice actor and producer for many projects. Taika has won many important awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award. In 2022, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

His movies Boy (2010) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) were the highest-earning New Zealand films. His short film Two Cars, One Night (2003) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He also helped write, direct, and star in the funny vampire movie What We Do in the Shadows (2014). This movie later became a popular TV show in 2019.

Taika has directed big superhero movies like Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). He also wrote and directed the movie Jojo Rabbit (2019), where he played an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler. Jojo Rabbit won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Taika also won a Grammy Award for helping produce the music for the film.

On TV, Taika helped create the comedy series Reservation Dogs. He also directed, produced, and acted in the comedy show Our Flag Means Death. He directed an episode of The Mandalorian and voiced the character IG-11. For this voice role, he was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Growing Up in New Zealand

Taika David Cohen was born on August 16, 1975, in Wellington, New Zealand. He grew up in Wellington's Aro Valley and in Raukokore, a small town in the Bay of Plenty.

His father was an artist from the Te Whānau-ā-Apanui Māori tribe. His mother, Robin Cohen, was a schoolteacher with different backgrounds. Her family had Russian Jewish, Irish, and other European roots. Taika identifies as both Māori and Jewish. He calls himself a "Polynesian Jew." He was raised more connected to his Māori culture.

Taika's parents separated when he was about five years old. His mother mainly raised him. He went to Onslow College and then studied theatre at Victoria University of Wellington. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1997.

Even though his legal last name is Cohen, Taika has mostly used his father's last name, Waititi, throughout his life. He first used Cohen for his writing and film work. He used Waititi for his art projects. After his first short film was successful, he continued to use Waititi professionally.

Early Career and First Films (1999–2011)

While studying at Victoria University of Wellington, Taika was part of a comedy group called So You're a Man. They performed in New Zealand and Australia.

He and Jemaine Clement formed a comedy duo called The Humourbeasts. They won New Zealand's top comedy award, the Billy T Award, in 1999. Taika also started making funny short films for New Zealand's yearly 48Hours film contest. He directed the short film Two Cars, One Night (2003). This film is about two boys and a girl who meet in a pub parking lot in Te Kaha, New Zealand. The film was praised and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 2005.

His first full-length movie was a romantic comedy called Eagle vs Shark. It was released in 2007. Taika co-wrote the film with Loren Horsley. That same year, he wrote and directed two episodes of the TV show Flight of the Conchords. In 2010, he acted in the New Zealand TV show Radiradirah with friends like Rhys Darby and Jemaine Clement.

His second movie, Boy, was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. Taika also played one of the main characters, an ex-convict father who returns to his family. When Boy was released in New Zealand, it received great reviews and broke box office records.

In 2011, Taika directed the New Zealand TV series Super City. He also acted as Thomas Kalmaku in the superhero movie Green Lantern.

Becoming a Major Filmmaker (2013–2019)

Taika Waititi speaking at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival

What We Do in the Shadows (2013)

In 2013, Taika worked with Jemaine Clement again. They co-wrote, co-directed, and acted in the vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014. Taika and Clement played vampires living in a spooky house in modern-day Wellington. This movie was so popular that it became a TV show in 2019. Taika is an executive producer and director for the TV series, which has been nominated for an Emmy Award.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Taika's fourth movie, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, was shown at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. When it was released in New Zealand, this comedy adventure broke Taika's own record for a New Zealand film's opening weekend. The movie is based on a book by Barry Crump. It's about a young boy (played by Julian Dennison) and a grumpy man (played by Sam Neill) who are on the run in the wilderness.

Marvel Films

In 2017, Taika directed his first big studio movie, Marvel Studios's Thor: Ragnarok. It was released in October and was very successful. He also played the alien character Korg in the film using motion capture. Before this, he made a short film series for Marvel called Team Thor, which showed what Thor and his roommate Darryl Jacobson were doing. Thor: Ragnarok was praised by critics and did very well at the box office.

Taika Waititi and Chris Hemsworth speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

In 2019, Taika wrote and directed Jojo Rabbit. This movie is based on the book Caging Skies. It tells the story of a child in the Hitler Youth during the 1940s whose mother is secretly hiding a Jewish girl. Taika played a silly, imaginary version of Adolf Hitler as the boy's friend. Jojo Rabbit was nominated for many Academy Awards. Taika won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. This made him the first person of Māori descent to win an Academy Award in a screenplay category. In 2021, he also won a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media for the film's music.

The Mandalorian

In 2018, Lucasfilm announced that Taika would direct an episode of the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian. This show tells the story of a lone gunfighter. The series started in 2019. Taika also voiced a robot bounty hunter named IG-11 in the show. He directed the final episode of the first season, "Chapter 8: Redemption". His voice acting earned him an Emmy Award nomination in 2020.

Recent Work and Future Projects (2020–Present)

Waititi at Toronto International Film Festival

In 2020, Taika narrated a special reading of James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl for charity. He played Ratcatcher in the DC superhero movie The Suicide Squad (2021). He also played the bad guy, Antwan Hovachelik, in the action-comedy movie Free Guy.

With Sterlin Harjo, Taika co-created the comedy series Reservation Dogs. This show is about a group of Native American teenagers in Oklahoma. All the main actors, directors, producers, and writers are indigenous people. Taika also produced, directed, and starred as Blackbeard in the HBO Max comedy series Our Flag Means Death. The first season was released in 2022. That same year, Time magazine put him on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Taika also voiced Mo Morrison in the Pixar movie Lightyear (2022).

He wrote and directed the superhero movie Thor: Love and Thunder, which is a sequel to Thor: Ragnarok. It was released in July 2022. Taika also directed a movie called Next Goal Wins, which came out in November 2023.

In 2024, Taika directed and co-wrote the first episode of a TV show based on the film Time Bandits. He also directed the first episode and was an executive producer for a TV show called Interior Chinatown.

Upcoming Projects

Taika has many exciting projects planned for the future. He has talked about making a sequel to What We Do In The Shadows called We're Wolves. He is also planning to direct a live-action movie based on the Japanese anime Akira.

In 2019, it was announced that Taika would direct an animated Flash Gordon movie. Later, it was changed to a live-action movie. In 2020, Netflix announced that Taika would write, direct, and produce two animated series based on Roald Dahl's books Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel. One show will adapt the books, and the other will focus on the Oompa Loompa characters.

It was officially announced in 2020 that Taika Waititi would direct and co-write a new Star Wars movie. This film is still being developed. He is also set to direct a movie based on the novel Klara and the Sun. In 2024, it was revealed that Taika would direct a film based on the novel James, with Steven Spielberg producing.

Personal Life

Taika Waititi was in a relationship with New Zealand actress and writer Loren Horsley for ten years. She helped write and acted in his first movie, Eagle vs Shark.

He met New Zealand film producer Chelsea Winstanley in 2010. They got married in 2011 and have two daughters, Te Hinekahu and Matewa Kiritapu. Taika and Chelsea separated in 2018.

Since 2021, Taika has been in a relationship with British singer Rita Ora. They got married in August 2022.

Supporting Indigenous Artists

Taika Waititi often includes his Māori and indigenous heritage in his projects. He supports indigenous artists by having interns from indigenous backgrounds and by having traditional owners perform a special welcome ceremony when filming starts in Australia. He is an executive producer for New Zealand films like The Breaker Upperers (2018), Baby Done (2020), and Night Raiders (2021). These films were all directed by Māori or indigenous filmmakers.

In 2021, Taika's cousin Tweedie Waititi started producing and directing Māori language versions of Disney animated films, thanks to Taika. In 2023, Taika was an executive producer on Frybread Face and Me, a film directed by Billy Luther. In 2024, he was an executive producer on We Were Dangerous.

Filmography

Awards and Achievements

Taika Waititi has won many awards and received many nominations. These include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award. He has also been nominated for Golden Globe Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards.

In 1999, Taika and Jemaine Clement won the Billy T Award for comedy. In 2005, Taika's short film Two Cars, One Night was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

In 2019, his movie Jojo Rabbit was highly praised. For this film, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was also nominated for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Musical or Comedy Film. He won a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media for the film's music.

Since 2019, he has written and produced the TV series What We Do in the Shadows. For this show, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and a Writers Guild of America Award.

In 2020, Taika Waititi was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. This honor was given to him for his great work in film.

Images for kids

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  Waititi at Toronto International Film Festival

See also

In Spanish: Taika Waititi para niños

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