IT WASN'T THE MOUSTACHE THAT BOTHERED HIM MOST Nor the straightened, dyed hair, pasted down over his forehead. Nor the jackboots or the brown shirt. Nor even the sweat-inducing fat suit clinging beneath it all. When Taika Waititi first looked at himself in the mirror as Adolf Hitler, the thing that really made him uncomfortable was the swastika band wrapped around his left arm. “It’s so bright and in your face,” he grimaces. “It’s just a horrible thing to look at.”
Today, late September in Hollywood, Waititi’s hair is back to its springy, grey-flecked self, and he’s stretched out on a couch wriggling his toes in a pair of odd houndstooth socks. Unlike, say, Charlie Chaplin, who lampooned der Führer in 1940’s The Great Dictator, Waititi couldn’t look any less like Hitler if he tried. But when he first saw himself as the Nazi commander-in-chief, who appears as a ten-year-old German boy’s imaginary friend in Waititi’s latest film Jojo Rabbit, he wasn’t so much shocked by the transformation as mortified.
“I was just sort of embarrassed. That’s the main thing. I was embarrassed all the time to look like that. Going on set, I’d say, ‘Look, sorry everyone.’ It felt like it was hard for it not to be gratuitous. You start asking yourself why you’re really doing it: ‘Why am I dressed like this?’”
It’s a good question. After directing the raucous ard ridiculously successful Thor: Ragnarok for Marvel Studios, Taika Waititi arguably could have made any movie he wanted. “The next logical choice was Batman, wasn’t it?” he says. Instead, he chose to make a whimsical satire set in Nazi Germany, starring himself as the founder of the Third Reich.
It’s fair to ask: what the hell was he thinking?
Bu hikaye Empire Australasia dergisinin December 2019 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Empire Australasia dergisinin December 2019 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Out Of The Cage
From the ashes of Suicide Squad has risen something fresh, bold and exciting: birds of prey. Inside the first-ever female-ensemble superhero film
The Master Of Suspense
With a string of dazzling, high-concept thrillers, bong joon ho has drawn comparisons to hitchcock. But his films also have a strong social message, and his latest, parasite, is no exception
Wonder Woman Swings Into The '80s
Director Patty Jenkins on setting Diana Prince loose in the era of excess
The Many Parts Of Martin Lawrence
As the comedian makes a bigscreen comeback, he talks us through his greatest roles
HIS NUMBER'S UP
AFTER 14 YEARS, THE LONGEST TENURE OF ANY BOND, DANIEL CRAIG IS ABOUT TO HANG UP HIS MARTINI GLASS AND WALTHER PPK. EMPIRE TRACKS 007 ACROSS THE GLOBE, FROM LONDON TO JAMAICA AND NEW YORK, TO BRING YOU THE ULTIMATE INTEL ON NO TIME TO DIE. AND HIS EMOTIONAL FAREWELL...
THE FALL GUYS
In 2011, Zack Stentz and Ashley Edward Miller were the hottest new screenwriting team in Hollywood. Then they disappeared. Eight years later, they tell EMPIRE their cautionary tale; revealing the tough reality of a writer's life Hollywood
Buddy Hell
The last blockbuster to be released in the 1980s, Tango & Cash seemed like a no-brainer: a buddy-cop team-up for two of Hollywood’s biggest stars. But it didn’t take long for the wheels to spectacularly come off
BLAZING a TRAIL
Queen & Slim IS A ROAD MOVIE, A TENDER ROMANCE AND AN UNFLINCHING LOOK AT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BLACK IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA. EMPIRE ASSEMBLES ITS WRITER, DIRECTOR AND TWO STARS FOR A FRANK, FREEWHEELING CONVERSATION ABOUT WHY IT NEEDED TO BE MADE
BATTLE PLANS
HOW SAM MENDES AND TEAM TURNED WORLD WAR I DRAMA 1917INTO A REAL-TIME, ONE-TAKE WONDER
An Oscar-winning director. The world's biggest pop star. A classic West End musical. Judi Dench with a tail. The biggest gamble of the year
Ever since the trailer dropped the world has been mesmerized by Cats. We journey deep inside the maddest, milkiest film of 2019