The director Taika Waititi admits that explaining the concept of his latest movie – a Second World War comedy about a boy in the Nazi youth whose imaginary best friend is Hitler – was something of a challenge, not least when he had to explain it to strangers. “Yes… Talking about the film you probably wouldn’t want to lead with, ‘It’s a Nazi comedy!’ Because it isn’t really.”
This is true as far as it goes – it is, instead, a comedy starring a Nazi child, Jojo (newcomer Roman Griffin Davis), who finds that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl in the loft (Thomasin McKenzie) and finds himself none too pleased… partly because he’d always been taught that Jewish people have horns and eat children. (Spoiler: he discovers they do not.)
It is, as Waititi puts it, “really a drama about two kids learning about tolerance and understanding – and learning about each other”.
If that sounds a touch saccharine… well, it is. But then Waititi’s trademark has always been to perfectly pair the sweetly whimsical with the dry and deadpan – from his early vampire mockumentary (What We Do In The Shadows, costarring and codirected by Flight Of The Conchords’ Jemaine Clement), via his breakout indie hit (Hunt For The Wilderpeople), to his mega-budget Marvel smash (Thor: Ragnarok).
In Jojo Rabbit, a sweet-natured if slight coming-of-age tale, he’s made one of the year’s funniest comedies. What’s more, as it won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, it now looks set to be one of the most unlikely Oscar frontrunners in recent years.
Though as Waititi is at pains to point out, mocking Hitler is hardly new.
“It’s not the first time anyone has approached this subject with jokes. I always remind people that The Great Dictator was made in 1939, before the war. So it’s in good company.”
Getting it made was less of a struggle than you might imagine – Fox Searchlight funded it before Disney bought Fox and nonetheless happily released it despite a lack of toy or sequel potential.
Casting Hitler was a different matter. A few months after finishing the script, Waititi sent it around to agents to gauge interest. Everyone loved it. Everyone had suggestions of who could play Hitler. But no one wanted to actually play Hitler. And after a while, Waititi says, he couldn’t think of anything worse than a famous person in the role.
“There was always something about the idea of needing a big name in that role that didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t want it to be the so-and-so Hitler film. And the press just being a picture of that actor as Hitler.”
Or worse: an actor actually playing Hitler.
“Yes! An actor taking it too seriously, spending all the time getting the nuances, rather than playing a ten-year-old that looks like Hitler.” By which he means a ten-year-old’s version of Hitler. What was needed was a hyperactive man-child, not an A-lister. In a meeting with Fox, they told Waititi they knew the perfect clown for the job.
“They said we strongly encourage you to take the role. And it was surprising to me. I mean, I’m Maori, from New Zealand, I don’t look that Aryan! Though to be fair neither did Hitler…”
Next up Waititi is returning to the film that made his mark in Hollywood, Thor: Ragnarok, a lurid technicolour creation featuring a depressed monster made from rocks. By the numbers it was not.
“What can I tell you?” he muses of the sequel, Thor: Love And Thunder, in which Natalie Portman’s love interest, Jane Foster, will be returning and will be taking up Thor’s hammer herself. “We’ll be exploring lots of new worlds not seen in Ragnarok or anywhere in the Marvel universe. And it’s going to be even more bold and vibrant. So we’re going to double down on that and make it more of a Thor film. If you read the comics, they’re outrageous. They’re insane!” (This is true: a popular internet list of Thor’s more out-there deeds includes the time he created an imaginary version of himself, whom he then had an affair with. And that was only No5.)
In fact, Waikiti’s default inclination for the more outrageous and lurid means he can’t stand the films that paint-by-numbers, like biopics, and once claimed to hate every biopic in existence. Is that true?
“No, not all biopics,” he clarifies. “I hate most biopics. I do make exceptions. If they’re done in an inventive way. Like, I love 24 Hour Party People. But could you even call that a biopic?”
Not really.
“I think where it comes from,” he continues, “is that whole run of biopics where the person starts as a kid, and there’s a tragedy, and that drove them to become a musician, and they’re visited by the ghost of their dead brother…”
Hold up. That’s Walk The Line…
“No!” he says, “That’s Walk Hard! [The John C Reilly parody of Walk The Line.] So, you know, I wasn’t the only one who noticed.”
Before our time is up, I tell him I’m glad that an inventive and slightly mad film-maker such as him can still thrive in Hollywood and, to my surprise, he seems genuinely touched.
“Well, thanks, mate. I feel Jojo is in keeping with my other films. But I do think it’s important. There was a poll where they asked Americans what Auschwitz was and 41 per cent had no idea and I think that’s becoming the norm, so we can’t ever talk enough about it. So it’s my most mature film and I think it might actually be my most important film. I feel like I’m growing up.” He pauses. “Finally.”
Jojo Rabbit is out on 3 January.
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