TAIKA WAITITI Boy
SECRETLY SINGLE
Actor/director/writer/what-have-you Taika Waititi is in a playful mood when he takes our phone call, trying to convince us that we’re pronouncing his name wrong (for the record, it’s Tie-ka, not Teeah-ka, no matter what he tells you).He has every right to be happy; his film Boy, having smashed New Zealand box office records, is making its way to Australia, where word of mouth has already guaranteed it’ll reach a wide audience, and Waititi himself is garnering a lot of praise not only for his behind the scenes work, but also for his winning turn as Alamein, the title character’s errant father. The film is a very personal story, and Waititi drew on his experiences growing up in rural New Zealand in the ’80s. “Well, they say write what you know,” he muses. “And I wanted to do a film about kids growing up, particularly in the ’80s, and that happens to be my area of expertise when it comes to childhood experiences. So when I was writing it, I was like, okay I have memories of walking along this bridge, and going past this paddock, and memories of going to that school and stuff. So it was personal, but I guess it was a mix of autobiographical locations and settings mixed with fictional storylines and plot devices. And also, my real life isn’t nearly as interesting as what was onscreen; you’ve gotta make stuff that’s entertaining as well, so what better way than to have a character like the dad, who comes in to shake up this boy’s world. And that’s where I had a lot of fun; creating characters like that, larger than life characters that do crazy stuff.” Boy, dealing as it does with themes of poverty and abandonment, straddles the
Lisa, Baz and Sam from 92.9 held a special No Secrets Singles Party last Friday at Eve, to help their listeners find love. Over 200 singles rocked up to event and were entertained throughout the evening by pop duo Scarlett Belle. Photographs by Matt Jelonek
Taika Waititi (far right) on the set of Boy
line between comedy and drama, a precarious position that was difficult to get right. Waititi insists it was an issue that required work right up until the final cut. “It took a long time. There was a balancing act, with getting enough comedy into the film without making it too stupid, and enough drama without making it too depressing. I think we worked it all out mainly in the editing in the end.That’s where we found the right balance.” Much of that balance depends wholly on the performance of James Rollestone as the eponymous character. Rollestone had never acted before, and indeed he was not Waititi’s original choice. “Before we met James we’d cast another kid about nine months before, and by
the time it came to shooting the film, he’d crossed over into adolescence and he was just too old basically to play the part. I needed an 11 year old kid and this boy started to feel like a 13 year old. He looked like he could look after himself pretty well, and we needed a character who you felt a little bit scared for at times,‘cause he was so small. So we met James, who happened to come in for a wardrobe fitting as an extra for a classroom scene, and everyone was pretty struck by his personality, we all took a shine to him, and three days before we started shooting we threw him in.”
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Strong violence and nudity, blood and gore
30
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Paul, Jase www.xpressmag.com.au