Taika Waititi Quotes

“A lot of people are trying to get out of their home country and think 'making it' is if you're able to work in another. For me... I'd be quite content to keep doing my own little films down there for the rest of my filmmaking career.”

“A set should be like a family, except that you all actually like each other.”

“Anyone who has a parent can relate to this idea of not quite understanding who your parents are or making up stories about them.”

“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.”

“Characters I create are just mixtures of the people I know.”

“Eagle vs Shark' is a little film I could take risks with and make mistakes on.”

“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.”

“Films that are easy to sell happen to be the worst films. Look at the poster for 'Wrath of the Titans' and 'John Carter': they're exactly the same. You could switch titles.”

“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.”

“I daydream all the time.”

“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 don't mind going from sadness to comedy in a split-second or mixing the two up.”

“I don't think there's much tolerance for people who are a little different or withdrawn or quiet. They always seem to be the ones who stick out the most, the ones who want to just shy away and withdraw.”

“I find that a lot of child actors are ruined once they've done a job.”

“I find that relationships between kids and parents are very interesting.”

“I love heroes that really go through ordeals, and they come out the other end completely changed.”

“I play music all the time because silence freaks me out.”

“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 think our first heroes with whom we discover flaws are our parents.”

“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.”

“I'd loved 'Iron Man,' you know, with a passion. I thought that was the most fresh, cool thing, in terms of superhero movies, that I'd seen in a long time.”

“I'm always fascinated by the theme of children who parent the adults.”

“I'm in all my films, I can't help it. I just jam myself in there if there's a space.”

“I've always felt that I wanted to make a Marvel film... I just want to make sure I'm not making an episode.”

“I've always found the script to be more of a skeleton, the template.”

“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.”

“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.”

“In a lot of my films, the biggest theme is family, making families out of those around you.”

“In my films, a lot of the situations come from real life.”

“Independent films are really the best ones out there. They're the most original stories, and they're very good.”