\u201cI think the more we focus on trying to get more work here and bring things here, hopefully it creates more of that interest, especially young people [who] want to get into the industry because even that\u2019s taken a little hit in the past with people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opportunities for film-making and acting have lately been dwindling, niche, or limited to regions, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that if we can keep that stuff happening and keep more things coming in then that\u2019s the dream \u2013 for all of us to be working.\u201d<\/p>\n
Studio West\u2019s recent credits include Jason Momoa\u2019s Apple TV+ series Chief of War, which was based at the studio. Momoa says he\u2019s excited for a chance to build lasting support and create pathways for the next generation of storytellers.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand has become a place that feels like home to me: creatively, culturally, and spiritually. There\u2019s a deep respect for story, for land, for community and that\u2019s something I am drawn to,\u201d Momoa said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am proud to be part of that journey, and to help champion stories that deserve to be seen and heard around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cliff Curtis, who also starred in Chief of War, says it\u2019s a full-circle moment for him because he first started working there nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cJason and Taika have achieved remarkable success on the global stage, reaching audiences worldwide and bringing more than a billion dollars of production revenue into our economy,\u201d Curtis said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat unites us is a shared commitment to telling authentic local stories alongside independent artists from our own communities \u2026 At its core, this is about ownership, creative control, and building a strong economic base \u2013 creating a platform where our communities can lead, shape, and share their stories with the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dealing with studio notes and new project<\/p>\n
This week, Waititi has been celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Hunt for the Wilderpeople \u2013 which is back in cinemas now \u2013 with the actors of the movie.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy favourite memories were just being a very small crew, lots of people in the different departments doing work in the other departments and just everyone sharing the load.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like a real New Zealand film-maker. I was out in the bush. I was up in the mountains and dragging equipment around and just finding these cool little moments between Sam Neill and Julian Dennison.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t talk about magical moments, but it was just many, many magical moments creating that film, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve felt as good making a film again since then. And I\u2019ve felt great making films since then but that was probably the best experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although in hindsight he feels the movie was \u201creally trying to please myself\u201d rather than the audience, after experiencing the world of Hollywood storytelling he now tries to put himself in the shoes of viewers too.<\/p>\n
But dealing with \u201cnotes\u201d or feedback from the studio was also something to become accustomed to, he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never really had to deal with notes or studio notes before I did those films in the States and that became a thing that was very surprising to me, because the Thor film was my fifth movie I think, and so at that point I didn\u2019t realise that I would ever \u2026 deal with notes or have to listen to other people, but you do and it\u2019s a real challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes they\u2019re right, lots of times they\u2019re wrong. It\u2019s part of the game there and we don\u2019t have that as much here.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s crushing but luckily the teenage version of me who still dominates this body still goes \u2018uh, I don\u2019t care, I don\u2019t even care, you\u2019re dumb\u2019, but I just say it to myself, and then often I\u2019ll do the notes.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of his next projects is to direct American writer Percival Everett\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel James, which will be executive produced by Steven Spielberg\u2019s company.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve confidence in that one and I feel good about how my approach would be to that,\u201d Waititi told RNZ.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also a scary prospect of doing a film about that subject, not being from there, but I think we may be starting to get past that phase of film-making and where you have to be from certain places, a certain person to authentically make something and I think that\u2019s \u2013 well they asked me to do it. So there\u2019s that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think the more we focus on trying to get more work here and bring things here, hopefully…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3952,3167,430,12636,16082,156,29116,37106,111,139,69,23367,29715,37105,3807],"class_list":{"0":"post-364465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-aucklands","9":"tag-buy","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-cliff","12":"tag-curtis","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-jason","15":"tag-momoa","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-studio","20":"tag-taika","21":"tag-waititi","22":"tag-west"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}