Writer-director Taika Waititi has a lot of projects under his belt, his most recent one being the fourth Thor movie, Thor: Love and Thunder. In almost all of his projects, he’s played unique characters, from the soft-spoken alien made of rocks, Korg, to the feared pirate Blackbeard in Our Flag Means Death.
In turns out that Waititi has a guiding principle in choosing what roles he wants to step into, especially in his own projects.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Waititi revealed his methodical method for deciding what roles he’ll take on:
Literally, it’s just what would have excited me when I was a kid. [What We Do in the Shadows collaborator] Jemaine [Clement] and I, when we first met, we’d make lists of types of characters we wanted to play. Somewhere in New Zealand that list still exists. It’s like “hot doctor, scientist, pirate, man made of rocks” — all these different things. We’re just sort of just picking our way through the list.
Many of Waititi’s roles would likely be on a list he put together as a kid. Some, however, like playing a sh*t dad in Boy or Hitler in Jojo Rabbit were hopefully not on his list, but are memorable roles nonetheless.
While we have to wait a bit for the second season of Our Flag Means Death to come out on HBO Max, we can catch Waititi’s latest movie where he reprises his role of Korg, Thor: Love and Thunder, when it hits theaters on Friday, July 8.
