Being Taika Waititi is a pretty good thing these days. The New Zealand filmmaker, writer, actor and director has transformed the “Thor” franchise into something special with the latest installment, “Thor: Ragnarok.” The Marvel Studios release is already one of the most critically acclaimed films from the Disney division and is expected to dominate the November box office when it opens next week.
When we sat down to record a podcast Wednesday afternoon Waititi warned me that he was suffering from a bit of jet lag having just stopped in Los Angeles after a world tour to promote the movie. Judging from our conversation you’d never know it. Waititi’s quick wit was firing on all cylinders as we discussed and laughed over everything from casting Cate Blanchett (teaser: she was pitched before there was a script), working with Jeff Goldblum (there is a four-minute extended version of a scene he improvised with Chris Hemsworth and another actor that will make you want to buy the digital copy), Hemsworth’s burgeoning comic talents, the lack of studio involvement (he only spoke to three people about the movie including Kevin Feige), the somewhat unexpected difficulty of dealing with too many great visual effects options and how he discovered Tessa Thompson’s breakout performance in the editing room.
Thompson made some news last week when she tweeted a response to a follower that her character, Valkyrie, was bisexual noting “Yes, she’s bi. And, yes, she cares very little what men think of her. What a joy to play!” This may or may not be something you’d catch watching the film (Mantis’ sexuality seemed much more obvious in “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2”), but considering Marvel Studios has now “out” LGBTQ heroes yet (a marked difference from the comic books) it seemed like a worthy conversation topic with Waititi.
“I would say that’s completely wrong. I would say Valkyrie is try-sexual,” Waititi jokes. “She’ll try it on with anyone.”
Getting more serious Waititi says, “Yeah, I think there is reference to that in the comic as well that Valkyrie is bi.”
I then inquired if there was anything in the movie specifically audiences should notice? Was it a something they discussed?
“We had talked about it. There was one moment that didn’t make it into the film where she was hanging out with a girl,” Waititi recalls. “If you were to read into that you can see that in her flashback. There is a girl there and maybe perhaps there’s something there that was her girlfriend. Who knows. We tried to make sure it wasn’t super specific or that we were trying to say ‘She’s a lesbian! She’s bi! We really gotta get everyone on board with this!’ It’s more like, ‘Look if you want to read anything into that you can make sense of it in parts of the film.’ I know that she had that and she was using that in her process and stuff. And I’m totally supportive of that. Why not?”
Waititi also spoke about his upcoming stop-motion animated (or is it puppet animated?) Michael Jackson buddy flick “Bubbles” (that isn’t as close to filming as some of us might have thought it was) and, like all guests, ended the episode answering the podcast’s four quick questions (the last show he bingewatched might feature some flying dragons).
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Look for upcoming podcast episodes featuring “Darkest Hour” screenwriter Anthony McCraten and two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz, among others. And check out previous episodes with “The Florida Project’s” Sean Baker, “Detroit’s” John Boyega, get behind the scenes T with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” producers and more on Soundcloud or on iTunes.
For more movie and Oscar insight follow me on Twitter @TheGregoryE.