Taika Waititi

Taika David Cohen (born 16 August 1975), known professionally as Taika Waititi, is a New Zealand filmmaker, writer, actor, and comedian. He has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Grammy Award, as well as nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and six Emmy Awards. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. His feature films Boy (2010) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) have each been the top-grossing film entirely funded and produced within New Zealand. He was born on 16 August 1975 in Wellington; his Maori father was an artist of French Canadian and Te Whanau-a-Apanui descent, while his mother, Robin Cohen, was a schoolteacher of European descent.

Waititi's 2003 short film Two Cars, One Night earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. He co-wrote, co-directed and starred in the horror comedy film What We Do in the Shadows (2014) with Jemaine Clement, which was adapted into a television series of the same name in 2019. His directing credits include the superhero films Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), as well as the black comedy film Jojo Rabbit (2019), the last of which he also wrote and starred in as an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler; Jojo Rabbit received six Academy Award nominations and won Best Adapted Screenplay.

While a student at Victoria University of Wellington, Waititi was part of the five-member comedy ensemble So You're a Man. He and Jemaine Clement, as the comedy duo The Humourbeasts, received New Zealand's highest comedy accolade, the Billy T Award, in 1999. His first feature film was a romantic comedy, Eagle vs Shark, released in US theatres in 2007. His second feature, Boy, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010. In television, Waititi co-created and produced the comedy drama series Reservation Dogs, and directed, produced, and starred in the comedy Our Flag Means Death. He attended Onslow College, then studied theatre at Victoria University of Wellington where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1997.