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Taika Waititi reflects on the 'trauma' of '70s cinema and his very first memories on set
10 years after the release of Hunt for the Wilderpeople, we sat down with director Taika Waititi for our Film Flashbacks series.
Vertigo Releasing
- Calum Russell
Published: Wednesday, 5 August 2026 at 1:00 pm
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Pleasing the general audience is no easy feat in contemporary Hollywood; indeed, it’s a complex puzzle that many movie studios and mood-lit boardrooms struggle to solve on a daily basis. But some mischievous filmmakers simply have the innate charm that seems to magnetise adoration, with Taika Waititi taking a place among this roster alongside the likes of Christopher Nolan, Ryan Coogler, Greta Gerwig, and other deities.
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Emerging to widespread critical acclaim in 2010 with his second feature-film, Boy — a comedic coming-of-age tale, spiked with sobering absent-father themes — Waititi steadily became a celebrated figure across his native country of New Zealand. Becoming the highest-grossing local film in the country’s box-office history, Boy paved the way for Waititi to flex his comedy muscles.
Critical darling What We Do in the Shadows came next in 2014, followed by the equally cherished Hunt for the Wilderpeople two years later, and by now, Waititi was considered an indie icon destined to be snapped up by the claws of Hollywood studios. And snatched he was, with Disney recruiting him for two Thor movies which he managed to sandwich around an Oscar-winning drama, 2019’s Jojo Rabbit.
Now, a decade after the release of Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and with the anticipated sci-fi adaptation Klara and the Sun on the near horizon, Radio Times spoke to Waititi for our Film Flashbacks series, discussing everything from his very first on-set memories to his collaboration with the late Sam Neill.
What are your earliest memories of watching films – of being a child growing up and learning about film?
My earliest memories of watching films, my mother took me to see The Wiz, which was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life — which is The Wizard of Oz with all the Motown singers. Michael Jackson is playing the Scarecrow. It's a really messed up film for a little kid.
I loved growing up in the '70s. Now, as a grown-up, knowing that it was actually a pretty special time because no one cared about kids, and they didn't care what we did. They didn't check in on us. It's like, it's a miracle any of us lived.
Mabel King as Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West in Sidney Lumet’s 1978 musical The Wiz. Universal/Getty Images
How come they took you to see The Wiz, why didn't they take you to see Wizard of Oz?
Because they were stoner parents, and they were just like, "Let's go see Motown people doing The Wizard of Oz." And, like, the makeup and all the costumes were just, like, bits of makeup peeling off their faces and stuff. It was kind of a nightmare movie.
Clash of the Titans was another one, and then the animated Lord of the Rings. Those are the three ones I remember. There's one... What's the guy's name who made that Lord of the Rings in the '70s?
Ralph Bakshi!
F**king yes!
Are you a big Bakshi fan?
I was that. I loved that, and that was also disturbing. Yeah. Imagine being five years old and watching that...
So were your parents kind of big cinema heads?
No, they just wanted to take me into a dark room and, like, just forget about me for a bit and, like, they didn't care what the movie was.
They took me to see Gallipoli at, like, eight. Do you know how long that movie is? And it's like nothing happens, and then the hero gets his chest blasted apart in the last shot. All to... Vangelis? Is that who does the... No, it's Jean-Michel Jarre is the soundtrack. It's like synth, weird, crazy '70s synths.
I mean, Peter Weir at his prime. Anyway, so that was my first memory of film and that's why I don't trust grownups.
Not really a positive memory then, The Wiz?
That was not a positive thing for me. I hated that. But now I would probably love it.
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On the flip side, then, what was your most positive memory? Did you have a 'light bulb moment' when you watched a film, or even a scene and you were like, "Oh, I wanna make films"?
Oh, that didn't happen till I was late 20s that I wanted to make films.
I never wanted to do that. I just wanted to have sex. And then in my late 20s that happened. No, joking. Lies, joking, happened way earlier.
ET [the Extra-Terrestrial] Yeah. I think ET was one of the times... It was the first time I cried in a movie. Yeah. And I didn't understand what was happening. I could not believe that a movie could make you cry, especially a child. And I was like, "What's this s**t coming out of my face?"
What moment was it specifically in ET?
When the flowers come alive again, and he, like, lives. I mean, I was crying when he died, but I cried more when he — more tears of joy — that he was back. And yeah, I think it was the first time I'd ever seen the most beloved character in the movie die. And when you're a kid, when you're a little kid, you can't believe that in a movie they could bring someone back. So that was pretty amazing.
Titanic, the black-and-white Titanic from, like, maybe it was the '50s. I watched that. That was traumatic as well. Never heard of the Titanic and was watching all these people just slowly falling off this boat and drowning.
Were there any particular directors or actors that you really looked up to at the time?
Oh, yeah. Kurt Russell, because Big Trouble in Little China was one of my favourite films, and The Thing is my favourite horror. So anything he's in I love. I loved watching him, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean, you know, I loved seeing Tom Hanks and those guys.
And that was a sort of the next wave of people. I was more the '80s where it was all like, I mean, Michael J Fox, I would've seen anything that he was in.
You started acting a long time before you directed — what were your very first memories of being on set?
My first acting thing on film was a commercial for butter, and I played a waiter.
Which butter?
Mainland Butter. It's actually great butter. They're still made today. It's going strong. We make great butter in New Zealand. Kerrygold's a good butter… I'm not sure too much about the British butters.
The French butters are not bad. Too salty sometimes. But New Zealand butter, that's the way to go.
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So what were your memories from the butter ad, was there anything that stuck?
The butter. It was incredible butter, we sold a lot that year.
The memory was that I played a waiter, and I came in with two coffees and put them on a table.
And I just remember being on set and thinking, "This is fun what I'm doing, but those guys over there seem to be having way more fun."
So what was your first kind of 'proper set' you went on?
I'd acted in a movie, and I thought I did pretty well. It was a movie called Scarfies, which is a slang term for ‘students’ in New Zealand, and that was kind of like a New Zealand version of Shallow Grave, and had a lot of fun with that.
Then I played a stripper in a TV show called The Strip… but that's where I got my first idea to make my own stuff because I was sitting around in a G-string, eating cans of tuna and thinking, "Is this it? Is this it? I'm just helping someone else realise their dream of making a stripper TV show. Maybe there's something more for me."
And so I wrote my first short film in a G-string in the green room, surrounded by dudes doing pull-ups. And that film went on to become nominated for an Oscar, and that's how my film career started.
And so thanks to that s**tty TV show, and me having to eat tuna in a G-string and being so depressed by that, I got the motivation to write my own stuff.
Throughout your career, Rachel House has played a prominent role, what is it that you really love about working with her?
Rachel House has saved my butt a lot on a lot of my films 'cause she is someone I can rely on who's just, you know, always elevates the scenes and the film and she's a great collaborator. She's a great filmmaker herself and a great storyteller.
She's also helped a lot and she helped to coach all the kids on my films in Boy, Jojo Rabbit, this [Hunt for the Wilderpeople] as well, she would help, you know, get them prepped for the scenes, as well have to learn her scenes as well. She did too much work, but we don't remind her of that.
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Of course, Sam Neill sadly passed away earlier this year, do you have any particularly special memories of working with him?
I remember him saying, "Uh, when are we wrapping?" quite a lot and [laughs] — I do remember… one of my favourite things is... 'cause he has a vineyard called Two Paddocks, and beautiful red wines and stuff that they make.
And after work, we'd go and we'd be staying out in these chalets and stuff out in the woods and out in the mountains, and after work we'd all go and have a meal, and he would just wander around the restaurant with these bottles of his wine, just dosing people up on his wine all night.
He was just very generous and just wanted everyone to have fun and have a good time and to be happy, and so that's my resounding memory.
The 10th anniversary release of Hunt for the Wilderpeople in 4k, is in cinemas & digital platforms 7 August, with UHD & Blu-ray editions on 17 August.
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Calum Russell
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