Taika Waititi, director of 'Thor: Love and Thunder': "Religions only cause problems"

The camera is turned on and Taika Waititi appears singing the journalist's first name, mixing it with Spanish and Italian words.

When she gets to the last name he gives up, and gives way to the interview this Tuesday at noon.

This start says a lot about Waititi (Wellington, New Zealand, 46 years old), someone completely alien to Hollywood conventions, and who at the same time is taking advantage of his idiosyncrasy to do what he wants in the industry.

Until leading the Thor franchise, one of the most boring superheroes, a piece of meat from Norse mythology that Waititi has mutated into a very funny guy in his emotional debacle, the filmmaker has left numerous samples of his talent as an actor , screenwriter and writer.

More information

Victoria Alonso, president of Marvel production: "The 'Lightyear' kiss is an update of the family, and we will continue to show it"

After creating a comedy duo with Jemaine Clement, they both made the series

(2007) and the movies

(2007) and, above all,

(2014), a false documentary about the day-to-day life of four vampires from very different times who share a flat and misery in today's Wellington.

Thanks to her, he came to

(2017).

In between, independent films as director

animation actor, series developer

has been running for four seasons) and the Oscar for best adapted screenplay for

(2019),

a comedy about a kid from the Hitler Youth —whose best friend is a hilarious Hitler played by Waititi himself— who discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish teenager.

Proof of his vital

—or that he doesn't know how to say no— is that while he was putting together

which he directs, co-writes and in which he even acts, on weekends he was going to play Blackbeard in the series

and he was preparing his new film (already shot),

the story of the Samoa soccer team, which lost in 2001 in a World Cup qualifying match against Australia by a historic difference: 31-0 .

And in his work horizon there is even a

which he has not yet written.

magazine

chose him this year as one of the 100 most influential personalities.

Ask.

Do you never take vacations?

Response.

No. For what?

I already rested the first years of my life.

Q.

You make a living as a comedian.

Are there limits to humor?

R.

When you work within Disney, you know how far you can go, and that there are people who will be nervous.

Obviously, you can't get a Viking out of eating children, which actually happened.

Placing limits on humor is dangerous”

P.

But, what do you think personally?

R.

_

Placing limits on humor is very dangerous.

I hear others making silly racist jokes, which I hate;

however, I will not be the one to censor them.

Q. Do you enjoy returning to the

universe

in your second installment of the saga (which opens this Friday in Spain)?

R.

Yes, because of the relationship I have established with Chris (Hemsworth, the protagonist), because the script was very good for us.

In person, Chris is a lot of fun, and he manages to convey that.

And we owed the character a romantic comedy.

Q.

In your new

, your villain is a hurt man turned Butcher of the gods, killing everyone he can... and his followers.

Only Thor tries to stop him, while most of the mythologies, starting with Zeus and the Greek deities, take refuge in the City of Omnipotence.

He has left a very anti-religious film.

A.

You can.

I'm an atheist, I don't like religions as I think religions only cause problems and fuck everyone up.

But I do like the concept of believing in something else.

P.

In the film the influence of Jack Kirby [author of the comic on which the script is based] is obvious, but do you know the work of essayist Christopher Hitchens and his books on religions as authoritarian systems, destroyers of individual freedom and of free expression?

A.

Kirby is fantastic, I love it.

I don't know Hitchens [for the interview, he asks the journalist to describe the British-American's thinking and an assistant to find his books on the Internet].

More information

Vampire apartment to share

Q.

Your protagonists are underdog characters, it even strips Thor of greatness and makes him a pitiful guy.

Why?

R.

Because that way the public is happy when they win.

Hollywood cinema is full of winners who win again [he makes a gesture of the spoon].

Well of course!

I'm more satisfied with giving losers a chance.

P.

A few days ago Victoria Alonso, one of your bosses at Marvel, defended in Madrid that the studio will continue to bet on showing all kinds of inclusive families and characters.

In

there is a whole panoply.

R.

Indeed, even my character [a rock monster] makes children by holding hands for a month in a volcano with another stony young man.

Or that Thor's hammer chooses a woman [the scientist played by Natalia Portman] to carry him.

The good thing about Marvel cinema is that it is seen all over the world, it goes further than my

And the important thing is that they appear for what they are, a normal fact, not to force the plot to get them out or for someone to say: "How cool to be gay!".

I want the children to see it like this, in a fluid way.

Like nothing.

P.

But your opinion is not the majority in many parts of the world.

A.

No, it is true.

And in a handful of countries they don't show movies because two women kiss.

It saddens me that your audience misses out on good stories.

Actually, the sad thing is that we discuss kissing when there are much more important things to worry about.

Who cares if two men go hand in hand!

Do you know one of the great problems of religions?

They are founded by men.

Who writes the holy books?

Men.

They seem to be written by guys who are heartbroken by how they talk about or reflect on women.

The only one that is saved is Buddhism.

In short, the religion that should matter to us is love.

The sad thing is that we discuss kisses [between women] when there are much more important things to worry about."

Q.

Well, that's what this

right?

There are too many religions, only love matters.

A.

Love should be our god.

If we reflect, many beliefs are based on love.

Jesus Christ proclaimed it, Mohammed said it.

Be good to each other.

Then others come with the damn rules...

Q.

As a producer, you are supporting both Maori and Native New Zealand and Native American films and series.

A.

I need to support different voices, wherever they come from.

It's like food.

Can you imagine New York without food from other countries?

boring.

Or London, where I am now, without Asian dishes.

Just English food.

Nobody would come.

Q.

Among your future projects is your adaptation of

the comic by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius.

Isn't that scarier than writing a

R.

It is an honor to work on a work by two creators that the whole world has stolen from in the last forty years.

It is impressive what they have influenced.

I already know that I will need more than one film, so I would like to do something with my humorous style, and in two or three films.

And of course, I have to raise my level to reach the height of that work.

01:00

Taika Waititi and Nacho Vigalondo share the Best Short Film category at the 2005 Oscars

P.

In

, Nacho Vigalondo directed you.

Their first experience together led to a fantastic video at the 2005 Oscars.

R.

Already [laughter].

We agree as candidates for best short fiction.

I pretended to be asleep when they named me [and Vigalondo had previously snapped his fingers at his announcement].

Now he is a great director, he likes to play on the set, like me.

By the way, we both lost!

Q.

Andrea Arnold won.

A.

What a fifth!