Writer/director Taika Waititi has a very clear reason for why he always casts himself in his movies. “In all honesty, and this is gonna sound very arrogant, but I really think I’m real awesome,” he tells Consequence with a laugh. “I like watching myself in the edit. I know a lot of people [who say], ‘Oh, I hate watching myself,’ but I actually really get a kick out of it. I’m like, ‘Ah man, this guy’s so funny.’ That’s just probably a lot about me, you know? I’m probably my own biggest fan.”
And thus, Waititi has a small role in Next Goal Wins, the new Searchlight Pictures film based on the acclaimed documentary of the same name. Both projects tell the story of the American Samoa football team, the ultimate underdog after a humiliating World Cup performance in 2001 that haunted them for years to come. Until, that is, a new coach (played by Michael Fassbender in the adaptation) was able to get them ready again for the global stage.
Waititi first got interested in the story of American Samoa football in 2015, when he watched the original documentary by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison, “which I absolutely loved.” At the time, he wasn’t looking for a new project, but then he met the real-life Jaiyah, a transgender player featured in the documentary, as well as the directors, “and it just got me sort of thinking, well, maybe I could do this thing.”
While he assumed that adapting the documentary wouldn’t be an option after he took on Thor: Ragnarok, after Jojo Rabbit he found himself with an opening in his schedule, and the film went into production in November 2019. After production wrapped, though, there were a few issues delaying its completion — not just a global pandemic, but also the later need to reshoot a small but key role, originally played by Armie Hammer.
Waititi looks at all reshoots as an advantage, though. “I always try and work pickups into my schedules, just because when you’re editing you realize, ‘Ah, maybe I should change this bit.’ Or maybe like, ‘Yeah, we need to have a little moment here between these characters. And then I’ve managed to put them in the pickups or additional photography. It’s just vital, and I’ve always done it and I always will.”
Continues Waititi, “it’s just been instilled in me. I’ve done it ever since my short films. You try your hardest to get things when you’re shooting and you think your script is great, but you just never know if it’s going to make perfect sense. And then sometimes you’re there like, ‘God, I wish I had a shot of someone picking up that cup. And then the scene would make complete sense.’ Most additional photography is just people getting shots of a map being opened, or a wallet being snatched out of a pocket. Just tiny little things.”
While Waititi always planned to play a character in the film, he didn’t know who exactly it would be — after “all the other roles were taken I just thought, ‘Oh, there was this idea for a priest, maybe I’ll do that.’ I partly wanted it just because I like playing priests, because I find religion funny and [I thought] ‘Oh, it’s been a while since I played a priest, so I’ll do that again.’ And then I didn’t even have any ideas for that character, so I just made him basically the same priest from Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I originally thought they were cousins or brothers, but I think they’re the same priest.”
Thus, we confirm the existence of the Hunt for the Wilderpeople Cinematic Universe (HFTWCU) or, as Waititi suggests, “The Taika-verse timeline.” (If you’re curious, the Priest’s appearance in Wilderpeople takes place after the events of Next Goal Wins.)
Waititi notes that he began as an actor at the age of six, only becoming a filmmaker “at the fresh age of 29 years old. And I decided, really, to become a filmmaker because I was so bored with the roles that were being offered to me to audition for, so I thought, ‘If I become a filmmaker, I could put myself in anything I make and then play any role I want to play.'”
It’s a strategy that eventually paid off, though as he says, “really, when you think about it, it actually took even longer than if I just kept auditioning. I went the really long roundabout way of becoming an actor.”
Being an actor on projects he’s not directing, like Free Guy or The Suicide Squad, is something he likes because “directing is so hard and it takes so long and it’s so stressful and you’re just always anxious and you can’t sleep and imposter syndrome is all around you, coursing through your body. With acting, all you have to do is turn up, swan onto the set in your little costume and little bit of makeup on and then say some words you remembered — or didn’t remember, if you’re most actors. And then you get to go home and then you get to go onto another movie. You get to do like five of those a year, and they’re like, ‘Oh God, he tortured himself for that role. Oh God, how torturous, he didn’t eat ice cream for a month.’ It’s like, come on, gimme a break.”
As he adds, “I’m really happy when actors become directors, because then they know, and then they come up to me and say ‘I’m so sorry. I have no idea how hard this was and I had no idea how annoying actors are.'”
Taika Waititi and cast behind the scenes of Next Goal Wins, courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
