The Big Picture - How to Make a Marvel Movie Funny With ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Director Taika Waititi | The Big Picture (Ep. 32)

Episode Date: November 3, 2017

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey chats with Taika Waititi about his transition from small indie comedies in New Zealand to Marvel’s big-budget superhero epic ‘Thor: Ragnarok.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The scariest thing, honestly, was they'd made 16 successful films for any director. If they're speaking honestly, coming into this thing, your biggest fear is, am I going to come in and just destroy it all, or am I the one that is going to ruin that record? I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture. What makes a Marvel movie work? Is it the action? The interconnected universe of storytelling?

The movie stars? With rare exception, it's not really any of those things. It's the humor. From Robert Downey Jr.'s wise-cracking Iron Man to the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, which treats interstellar war like a slapstick movie, the best Marvel movies are the funny ones. Now we have the funniest one yet. Thor, the Norse god played by Chris Hemsworth,

who wields a big hammer and a Shakespearean accent, has always been kind of a blank character. But in Thor Ragnarok, he's a different kind of hero. Charming, self-aware, and most importantly, a comedian. The credit for that goes directly to today's guest, Taika Waititi. He's a filmmaker who started out as a comedy writer and performer in New Zealand with people like Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Concords fame and Waititi is yet another in a long line of unlikely director

choices by Marvel. Before Ragnarok he'd made four films, all small, all in New Zealand, and all comedies including last year's Sweet and Tart Hunt for the Wilderpeople. With the third Thor movie he's turned a stately story into something much goofier and as he told, he did so largely on his own, without Marvel looking over his shoulder during the production. We talked about making Marvel funny, getting Cate Blanchett to play along, and a lot more. Without further ado, here's Taika Waititi.

Very excited to be joined by Taika Waititi. Taika, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on the show. This is a pleasure. I'm a huge fan of your films, though I want to talk to you about how the hell you got here making a Marvel movie, because the movies that you were making before this are quite different from Marvel movies. They are very different. A lot smaller.

That's right. A lot smaller in scale and in budget, but just as big in heart. That's true. So, you know, you were making films mostly in New Zealand, comedies with some dramatic elements, Hunt for the Wilderpeople last year. A lot of people saw that, what we do in the shadows. Take me back to the moment when someone from Marvel contacted you and said, you should make a Thor movie.

Well, I was in Hawaii, just giving birth to our second child, and Jermaine and I have been trying for years. And I was editing Hunt for the Wilderpeople, so I was halfway through the edit for that. And I get an email from my agent saying the EP from Marvel would love to talk to you about Thor, the new Thor film. And my initial reaction was, I'm not sure if I'm very well suited to one of these kind of films.

I'd seen them and enjoyed them, but had always thought, man, how do you even do this? Like logistically and just creatively, how do you get your head around tackling something so big? I had a meeting on Skype with him and he told me, okay, the Hulk's going to be in it. Basically what he said was, we really want to change the whole franchise.

Chris is feeling like it's getting a bit too familiar for him playing that character the way it is. We want to tap into how funny Chris is. We want to just venture off in a completely new direction with the franchise and just shake it up and make it more fun and make it more of a cosmic adventure. And that was really exciting for me because my favorite of the marvel franchises have you know have been guardians and

probably iron man but each of those franchises are so solid in in their identity and so solid and knowing what they are because they had strong filmmakers behind them who know what they want. And the best example is James Gunn, who's done such an incredible job with Guardians. I would never in a million years want to do a Guardians film after what he's done because I just wouldn't feel like I could have any ownership or bring anything unique or have any kind of

stamp that I could put on it but Thor was the one franchise where I felt like it didn't quite know itself as well as the others and it just had so much more potential for to be shaped into something new and that's what became exciting for me because I thought yeah I can

come in after all the groundwork and the foundation laying that that branner and taylor did on those first two films which i i like those i like those films but they did all the hard work in like you know explaining what asgard is and who heimdall is and the bifrost and like all these crazy names and things that you've got to take on they've done all all that. And all I had to do was like come in, walk into the door with all my crayons and like, you know, colors and crazy characters. And so, yeah, I had a way easier job coming into that. When Marvel comes to you, what do they say?

They say you have a great comic sensibility and we want that in your film. How do they talk about it? Really, they said, you know, we've seen shadows. But the thing for us that really, really made us interested in you was your second film, Boy. And I think really

that just they, it's not enough for them just to get someone who can tell jokes. They want to find storytellers who can access the dramatic side and kind of massage

some pathos into their fun stories as well so that it means something. You know, those are the best films that swing between drama and comedy and, you know, something for everyone and it's a bit more of an emotional ride. And so, yeah, so they said, look, you know, obviously you haven't done superhero movies before, but we have. We know what we want and what we're doing from the spectacle side of it,

from what the fans want. But we want someone unique, and we want new and original voices in our universe, which is why they got James and the Russos in the first place. What was the scariest thing about considering taking it on for you? The scariest thing, honestly, was they'd made 16 successful films. And I think for any director, if they're speaking honestly, coming into this thing, your biggest fear is,

am I the one that is going to ruin that record? Am I going to come in and just destroy it all and topple that house of cards? So what do you do to prevent that? You actually just have to kind of – I think you have to give over that fear and turn it into trust and trust that they do know what they're doing and that Kevin is a genius and and that lou and victoria and the three of those three together i like this sort of this this kind of um trident of success who know they

know their fans they know the they know the universe that they're creating and how everything interacts and this weaves to the point where i was like oh great this is someone who thinks like me and who wants to just do something different and and surprise everyone to the point where I was like, oh, great, this is someone who thinks like me and who wants to just do something different and surprise everyone all the time, which meant that I felt my ideas and my sensibility was really suited for this film. Did you care about Thor before this? Because candidly, I didn't really care about Thor.

This is the first movie. It wasn't a character. I never collected any of those comics. I collected a lot of comics when I was a kid, but my things were X-Men, New Mutants, and Batman. And then a few Vertigo and Dark Horse things, sort of those weirder things. But even Iron Man, it wasn't really my thing.

I felt like they were probably too, I don't know, for some reason I felt like too mainstream or something as a kid. Yeah, too classic. Yeah. And I just sort of felt kind of old and weird. But it's actually a character I've come to love so much, mainly because of Chris. Yeah.

And mainly because I can't think of Thor now without thinking of Chris and what he's brought to the character. He's a Norse god from Australia. And so really we just gave him permission to just, you know, inject more of himself into the character because, you know, I mean who the hell can relate to, you know, a rich kid from outer space? Yeah. Yeah.

Nobody. And, you know, he just carries a hammer around all the time. And nobody can and nobody really wants to. So how do we make him more relatable and make a version of this character that the audience can identify themselves in? And a big part of that was, yeah, make him ask the questions, make him surprised by what we're surprised by. So when he sees Jeff Goldblum, he's like,

what the hell, who the hell is this? And like, you know, he's constantly, when he gets to Sakaar, he's just confused all the time, which is really what the audience is um experiencing and so and i think my theory really is that the audience is drawn to the character who's he's talking or or acting like them or reacting to the environment as they are and then uh which is really all you want you know you want the audience to be on thor's side and to be with him on the journey.

Yeah, and you took things away from him and made him the weak character. You have to strip him down. He lost the hammer, lost Earth. He's lost his powers. Exactly. He's lost his friends. He's alone. Hammer.

Quite unique. It was made from this special metal from the heart of a dying star. And when I spun it really, really fast, it gave me the ability to fly. You rode a hammer. No, I didn't ride the hammer. The hammer rode you on your back. No, no, no. I used to spin it really fast, and it would pull me off. Oh, my God. The hammer pulled you off?

The ground. It would pull me off the ground, up into the air, and I would fly. Every time I threw it, it would always come back to me. Sounds like you had a pretty special and intimate relationship with this hammer, and that losing it was almost comparable to losing a loved one. It's a nice way of putting it. Every single character except for Korg played by who?

Played by the great New Zealand actor, director, private dancer, Taika Waititi. Every character wants to take something from Thor. When you look at it, it's like they want to exploit him, sell him, eat him, kill him, make him fight.

But there's very few characters who come in who are just like, hey, I just want to be your friend, man. That's true. That is your character's vibe. Let's hang. So tell me a little bit more about the rest of the cast, aside from yourself and Chris Hemsworth. I mean, Cate Blanchett's in the Marvel hang so tell me a little bit more about the rest of the cast aside from yourself and Chris Hemsworth

I mean Kate Blanchett's in the Marvel movie she's she's in this Marvel movie that is a crazy thing I would often like check in with myself and say you know

you realize Kate Blanchett's just there and like in front of the camera and you're like you're directing her or Tony Hopkins

or you know so it's like it's pretty bizarre yeah but jeff goldblum yeah those are the three that i was really like i often would sit there and go wow who would have thought how do you guys do that i mean obviously anthony hopkins is in the previous films but with kate and jeff in particular huge names serious performers jeff maybe a little bit less so on the serious side but is that something that you're in the room with Marvel and you guys are like, what would be the most mind blowing way to get person X in here? What's the creative process of that?

A little bit. The great thing now about Marvel is that everyone wants to be in the film. So when I came in, it was really like, well, let's just take our pick of people and, you know, we'll get one of these amazing people for sure. She was the first choice for me as well. I went and talked to her and, you know, she was thoroughly confused by what I was talking about with, you know, the form of this universe and all these things.

And I thought, okay, basically, forget everything I've said. It's just a film about a guy trying to get home to save his house from burning and the arsonist is you and you're in the house. Do you want to play someone like that? It's after hours but set in space. He's just trying to get home and he's accompanied by this ragtag bunch consisting of his annoying brother, a bipolar guy who's prone to anger spells, and a drunk chick.

Yeah, it's like a chamber piece. It's a small drama set in outer space. Her thing also was she'd just come off Carol, hilarious film. Todd Haynes was here last week. I feel like I gave a shit about that every day on set. It's just like, hey, Kate, is this like more or less fun than Carol? And will you be signing on for Carol 2? The extended Carol universe.

Yeah. But she really, yeah, one of her points was, I've been doing these award-winning roles where I cry and go there and sort of strip myself of emotions. And I just want to do some fighting and wear a funny costume and make a movie that my kids want to see. And something that's fun and doesn't, it's not like, you can invest some time and

effort into it as an actor i guess but something that's not gonna just like ruin your day and you know you can enjoy going to work tell me about that though how do you do that on a movie this big because i imagine the sets of your previous films are probably pretty fun but yeah you know the stakes are probably a little bit lower given what's happening. How many people are there? Well, my sets, yeah, exactly right. My sets are very fun. I play a lot of music. There's a lot of, you know,

I basically create an environment where it feels like you're making a film with your family to the point where you can give each other shit and really lay into each other and make fun of each other's work. And I invite anyone to make fun of me and my directing style, which is not even a style. It just like telling giving people line readings and um it's just a

fun environment because I'm trying to recreate the environment that I had when I was working with my mates you know in my first films it was just like that we were just all of our friends we didn't there were no egos because no one was famous and you know we just yell at each other and tell each other no that was shit do it again like just yell at each other and tell each other, no, that was shit, do it again, do it like this. And just trying to kind of create the coolest thing we could. Can that work on a movie like this? Well, that was my big fear. My fear was coming in and being like, oh, man,

I've got to deal with these egos. I've got to deal with people who don't want to be told what to do. And now I've got to go on to like, oh, Kate, remember when your character was like, you know, and she was like, I don't want to think about that kind of thing. This is like, she's like, just tell me how to say it. I don't care. She's got nothing to prove.

And so when you, and that's what I realized, you come into this thing, these actors are so good and like so experienced. They don't have anything to prove. They don't care if you, you know, if you want to tell them exactly what you need because time's running out, you know. It's not insulting to them if they've won two Oscars, you know if you want to tell them exactly what you need because the time's running out you know it's not insulting to them if they've won two oscars you know because if they need to have

that conversation sure they can but also you know look at the costumes they're wearing and you know it's like we are faking it to some degree sure you know for the audience so that so my whole plan was i'm just going to play music i'm going to try and recreate that feeling. And it worked. I've heard about these film sets and visited a couple where it's just you can hear a pin drop and it's completely silent. Everyone's stressed out and the actors just don't want to do anything wrong.

But I'm like, we have to do things wrong. We have to reach for the mistakes because that's where the great ad libs all come from. That's where jokes like Korg's The Foundations joke at the end of the film, where that comes from, from just messing around and trying something dumb. My big thing was, please try the dumbest thing you can think of, because there could be some piece of gold in there. In any case, you know this...

You call yourself Lord of Thunder? God of Thunder. I've never met this man in my life. He's my brother. Adopted. So I think the perception of Marvel movies, any tentpole movie, is that these are very controlled environments, that the scripts are very sacred, you're dealing with the mythology, etc., etc.

Yeah. But your style is obviously totally different. I think on the previous movies it probably was a bit like that. The script is sacred. This one I feel like they – and I don't know how the other funnier films were made. I've heard that Iron Man was probably a similar thing. Downey just riffing. Exactly, which is my style.

I love that kind of working. And for me, the best thing that ever happened was that they just left us alone and that they allowed us to treat the script more as a suggestion or a blueprint and that we could come in and say, here are the key things from the scene that we need to say so the audience knows what's happening. How we get between those things is up to us and like how we make it fun and like turn into a real

conversation between two people who are actually listening to each other that's our goal because mostly when you watch these films you can see the actors like here comes my line here comes my line i said my line and i looked really serious yep you know. But you make it sound like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Yeah, and it's very similar to that. Very similar style. We actually did have a script with dialogue, but we threw a lot of that away just once we started blocking and once we talked with the actors.

And I said, look, be very honest. If there's a line you don't want to say, we need the information, but we have to figure out how to say it in a way that it makes you comfortable i would often say i don't want you to say this line because it's it's very bad and once we had that freedom we would just riff a lot and you know i would just i basically just sit next to the actors next to the camera and yell stuff at them and suggest lines and then tell them to do it again and say like this and do this and that and so there's a lot of talking and resetting and just doing stuff and doing stuff and so the best example of like how you can see where you can see how much

fun people are having is you know any of the scenes with bruce and and thor like this classic one in the street they're kind of bickering about going back to Asgard, I want to go to Earth, and blah, blah, blah. You're just trying to use me to get to Holt. And all of that was really just us shaping it

over 20 takes to the point where you can see they're listening to each other because they're like, I don't know what he's going to say, I don't know what I've got to, I've got to kind of, yeah,

and there's an energy there where you like, you can almost see them smiling when they're talking because they're like, I love this, I love this, this is why I became an actor because I feel the fire and I because they're like, I love this. They're amusing each other. This is why I became an actor, because I feel the fire

and I can feel this energy. And often they would call cut and stuff, and they'd be leaping around so excited. They'd be like, oh, that felt so real and so human and so alive. And it's really amazing seeing actors excited by that. But also in this movie, you've got led zeppelin soundtrack battle scenes how do you balance those two things and what's it like to try to make something like that well the led zepp song i put in my sizzle reel when i was pitching so i'd cut together a

whole lot of things you know to show the sort of tonal approach i wanted to take and um you know just from different movies and and then put the entire thing to immigrant song they loved that reel but they also loved that song so much that when I got the job, Kevin said, we should also explore getting the rights to that because it's notoriously hard slash impossible to get a Led Zepp song in your film. But, you know, shit, if anyone's going to do it, it's the studio.

And in the edit, we'd always wanted to open the film with that song um and but once it came to the trailer what you do is you like send led zip the clip with the song and you send the money so that there's no negotiation negotiation they don't watch the clip and go like oh you know if you choose. They watch it and go, yes or no. I'm trying to picture Jimmy Page watching a Thor movie. That makes so much sense. I'm watching the trailer and bobbing his head. Very interesting.

Finally, someone gets us. But on the other hand, a lot of people said, I can't believe it took this long for Immigrant Song to show up in a Thor movie. So you were on track. And then in terms of all the action stuff that was the most rigid and

you know the most kind of prescriptive we ever got was having to stick to a lot of pre-vis or stunt

stunt-vis stuff because it just makes sense so you don't really want to be improvising stunts was that stuff interesting for you

to be doing because you obviously didn't have a lot of experience it was kind of interesting it's not as interesting as you know having fun and you know with the actors and stuff like that just cutting down you know a little sequence into like minuscule little shots where it's someone landing on a three-point you know pose or anything like that it's not massively interesting to me when it it cuts together, it's like, oh, wow, that's incredible. It's like making a music video. But on the day of shooting, it's pretty laborious.

Was there ever a moment when you got the sense that Marvel was nervous about anything that you were doing here? No, there was never a moment where I got the sense they were even paying attention. That's amazing. Yeah, it was amazing because we were in Australia. And most of the time they were in atlanta dealing with spider-man and um the i think black panther was about to start shooting there's a whole you know a whole lot of stuff going on and we were in australia kind of by ourselves just left left to our own devices might have said that everything

changes in post and that's where their masters of the you know their storytelling is like they get into post and they get their hands dirty and they deconstruct everything and reform it. Did you get precious about that at all? I didn't. I didn't get precious because it was not my source material and not my script. And so for me it was like, I don't care. You can totally tear the story apart.

Interesting. There's only things that I was precious about were jokes and little cool human moments or cool little moments between characters, you know, like certain expressions or certain lines of dialogue. But did you have any concern about getting into a world where you hadn't told the beginning of the story and you're not going to be telling the end of the story?

No, because I, I don't feel like when you look at it, it pretty much is an episode within the larger thing. But for me, I really feel like this film stands alone and can be watched by itself without any prior knowledge of anything. That's true.

That was one of my main goals was to make something that felt like one of my films that could kind of easily go in the collection of films that I've made and could stand alone by itself, but obviously would reward viewers who had seen all the other stuff. Tell me a little bit more about New Zealand. I want to know what it was like coming up in New Zealand as a filmmaker, comic writer, actor. And also, I don't know very much about

the film community. I think what everybody knows is Peter Jackson. Yeah, that is pretty much the community. No. Well, New Zealand is very small, obviously. There are not a huge amount of filmmakers and not a huge amount of money to make films. We have a film commission. It's a government body who finances everything we do. And we really don't make films privately. And I just came up through the years

after making a couple of short films, made my first feature and just sort of just kept going. And luckily for me, I had a good track record and had good successes where it just became easier for me to access that money. You were the owner of Box Office Records in the country. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the two highest grossing New Zealand films. But also, you know, it's a bureaucratic system at the Film Commission. Often,

steeped in like this long-winded development hell, which we call it, where scripts can be in development there for five years. Not so different from Hollywood.

Probably not different from Hollywood, but like, it's the only place you can go. There are no alternatives. You couldn't even say like, oh,

I want to get my script and go. Yeah, it's, and the community is, you know the community is actually pretty strong. I think we make good films. We probably make about five or six features a year. Were you eager to make a pure Hollywood product?

I was. But I had no real desire to make a superhero movie. I just wanted to do something, a cool film in a studio or something that – I had no real desire to make like an American indie film. So I just felt like I've got enough of those in New Zealand and I like working in New Zealand. And also I've got a bunch more scripts that I want to do that I'd rather do.

And I'd rather do my scripts than someone else's indie films. So, yeah. But I would always dream of like, yeah, it would be awesome to be on one of these giant sets and do these action things and work with all these people I always imagined you would do something like a Will Ferrell comedy or something like that was there a time when you were messing with the studio

comedy system? Yeah but I started really feeling like I can't really tell the difference between the directors of any of those films I can't name many directors of any of those films. I can't name many directors of any of those Will Ferrell films or any of those, you know, like the Apatow films and all those, you know, which I love watching them. I think they're really funny.

But as a director, I was like, I don't know about, like, how you would really, like really imprint yourself on those things. And it's really just point the camera at those geniuses and let them talk and do all the jokes. And there's your movie. And I watch those movies. I'm just like, yeah, I don't even care about what the shots look like. I don't care about the style. I just want to see these guys tell jokes and be who they are.

That's so interesting, considering that you had such a hand in creating everything around all of your previous films too, that you'd be willing to not be so... Oh, I wasn't willing. That's what I mean. I didn't want to do one of those comedy films because I didn't think I would have a voice.

I didn't think that... If there's ever been a script or something in Hollywood where I felt like anybody could make this, you just turn the camera on and point it at these guys and let them do their thing. That for me is not really – there's no point. Will you make another Thor movie? I'd love to. And the reason really is because I've loved working with Chris and Mark, and everyone really, and definitely have loved working with Marvel. But also I feel like it wouldn't be a fourth Thor film for me. It would actually be a second Ragnarok film in a way.

It feels like it'd be difficult for someone to make a Thor movie after your movie because you've so clearly like redefined the characters feel really good because that i feel is exactly like how james must feel or the researchers must feel it's like how do you follow that up and i feel like on this you know with with ragnarok it'd be very hard to follow it up um with a different team so some of the benefits of making a movie like this are that assuming you do it well, it will be successful. But that's also because it's part of a universe and there's an expectation and people don't

necessarily know that you made this film. They know that it's part of Marvel movies, which they like to go see. Yeah, yeah. So how do you know if you nailed it or you made something that is special? Well, I knew for sure in some of the preview screenings. And how I know is when the audience laughs in the right places, they're quiet in the right places, and they're awake at the end. And that's like, those are my three, like, it's my checklist.

But really how I knew I'd made a Taika film and that it was going to work was, again, don't mean to turn the conversation back on to Korg, but really it was about all those times that he opens his mouth and says that weird, tangential, strange, mundane shit and that they let it in the movie and in fact encouraged more of it to be in the movie that I thought, whoa, this is very different for Marvel. It makes me very happy that I've got my style of comedy in here.

Most of these Hollywood, what I'd call blockbuster films, the style of comedy is often just a joke that was written nine months before it was shot. Canned one-liner. Yeah, and it's just like da-da-da-da-da, blah-blah-blah. And that elicits a sort of chuckle i think from audiences you know which is fine it's a style but in this film there are jokes that just go on and on and like you know you can tell that we're just riffing and we're making it up you can tell that people are enjoying saying

them and you know and there are callbacks and there's just you know and there's just, you know, surreal jokes. There's great visual gags. There's a lot of stuff in there which you couldn't write 12 months or, yeah, you couldn't write six months before shooting. And what's been amazing for me is that all of that stuff we came up with on the day is in there. It's been allowed to be in there. Let's lean into Korg a little bit. Oh, God, I was hoping you wouldn't talk about Korg.

So you've appeared in all of your films? A lot of my films, yeah. And you like doing that. I do. Korg, we should say, is a giant stone creature. Yeah, he's made of rocks. And again, his introduction joke, that has no business being in a Marvel movie.

The rock, paper, scissors gag. How that even was allowed to get past the filter i like the idea of rock paper scissors existing in other universes yeah that's that's appealing so you mentioned jermaine jermaine clement you're yep you know partner someone you've worked with a long time you've known for many years what does he make of your rise to Hollywood power? Oh, I think he's quietly proud, very quietly. Publicly undermining you, though. Exactly, all the time.

He's just jealous, man. He's just jealous of my success. He had his time. He had his chance. He blew it. No, I think he just wants me to hurry up and finish this stuff so that we can get on with our other projects. Great segue.

Tell me what's going on. What's that going to be? Well, we've got a New Zealand. We're about to start shooting. I mean, he's basically made me do this, and I'm trying to enjoy my time as toast of the town as a big shot hollywood director yes and he's making me go back to new zealand to shoot a spin-off tv series it's a spin-off from what we do in the shadows which follows the two cops um around the small town in

new zealand as they investigate paranormal cases so it's like a mockumentary boring X-Files in New Zealand. That's very funny. And then I've got my own little thing, my own other scripts I'm trying to do. I'm doing a bit of prep, which will be starting soon, on a stop motion movie with Starburns Industries. Oh, that's very cool. Who did Anomalisa. And this is a stop motion based on a script called Bubbles, which is about Michael Jackson's

chimpanzee. And it's sort of a call back to boy. Call back to boy in a way. Yeah. I mean, it's actually really, it feels like everything is connected now. So Taika, I like to wrap up by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? What's yours? Get Out. I loved it so much. It's the last great thing they've seen. What's yours? Get Out.

I loved it so much. It's the only thing I can remember right now. A lot of people are saying that about 2017. It was one of the few films that I was like, you know this look that the main actor in that, his name's Dan. Daniel Kaluuya. Daniel Kaluuya.

There's certain looks that he gives in that film where his mouth is kind of open and he looks like he's about to faint. And so I'm sure that was the expression on my face watching that movie throughout the entire film was just like my mouth was just open. And I was like, I remember just thinking, I probably was just thinking, get out, get out, get out, get out constantly. It just made me so panicked but in a way where I was just thinking, get out, get out, get out, get out constantly. It just made me so panicked, but in a way where I was just like,

I freaking love watching this movie. I loved it. I loved being in this environment, just in that town, and trying to work it out. I was like, yeah. And I'm pretty cynical. If I hear that everyone loves a film, I feel like I'm in danger of not liking it. I get really scared of seeing the film.

And what I do is I tend to like ignore it for a few months and just wait for everything to die down and see it in my own time and just so I can like not be too kind of influenced by the chatter. Yeah, it's the rare universal approval movie. Anybody who's seen it, I have not heard. Even the most cynical person can't find a way to know. You know what I loved about it? It's like it wasn't like a star fest.

There were good actors and actors. If you knew them, you knew them. Yeah, I was totally drawn in to that film. Taika, thank you so much for doing this. Oh, I didn't want to. You forced me. Thank you for having me, man.