Taika Waititi

Taika David Cohen, professionally known as Taika Waititi, is a New Zealand filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, and comedian who broke into mainstream Hollywood while keeping irreverent indie sensibilities intact. Born 16 August 1975, he grew up with the creative restlessness of a Life Path 1—the pioneer archetype [birth F1, enrichments]. His early work included the 2003 short Two Cars, One Night, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. The feature films Boy (2010) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) each became the highest-grossing film entirely funded and produced within New Zealand, establishing him as the country's most bankable auteur. His 2014 horror-comedy What We Do in the Shadows, co-written and co-directed with Jemaine Clement, became a cultural touchstone; the film was adapted into a television series in 2019 that received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series. Waititi's leap to superhero tentpoles—Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)—proved he could scale indie irreverence to $300-million budgets without losing his voice. Jojo Rabbit (2019), which he also wrote and starred in as a comedic Adolf Hitler, garnered six Academy Award nominations and won Best Adapted Screenplay; Waititi earned a Grammy for producing its soundtrack. In television, he co-created the acclaimed comedy-drama Reservation Dogs and directed, produced, and starred in the pirate-comedy series Our Flag Means Death. He also directed an episode of Star Wars' The Mandalorian and voiced the droid IG-11, earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. As a Leo born in mid-August, Waititi channels the sign's trademark confidence and theatrical flair into projects that blend comedy, pathos, and visual audacity [birth F1].