{"id":636581,"date":"2026-10-20T19:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T19:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636581\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T19:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T19:14:10","slug":"taika-waititi-on-ai-in-hollywood-new-movie-klara-and-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636581\/","title":{"rendered":"Taika Waititi on AI in Hollywood, New Movie ‘Klara and the Sun’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTaika Waititi<\/a>\u2019s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro\u2019s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun<\/a>, starring Jenna Ortega<\/a> and Amy Adams<\/a>, was developed years before AI<\/a> arrived in full force and the discussion about its potential permeated Hollywood. But at the film\u2019s New York special screening on Monday, the team behind the movie told The Hollywood Reporter it\u2019s a timely story that underscores the necessity of embracing our own humanity amid the rise of new technology and the power of human connection in and outside of the industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tIshiguro\u2019s dystopian coming-of-age drama<\/a> is set in a version of the future where people can \u201clift\u201d their children, a process that genetically engineers them to have enhanced academic abilities. The drive to create more successful children also fuels an isolating society, leading to the development and creation of purchasable, solar-powered artificial intelligence known as Artificial Friends. Ortega portrays Klara, a slightly defective A.F. and the story\u2019s narrator, brought home by Adams\u2019 Chrissy for her daughter Josie (Mia Tharia), who has become sick since being lifted.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat I love so much about this story, and why I wanted to do this story, is because yes, Klara is an Artificial Friend and she comes into this very broken, complicated family that really doesn\u2019t communicate enough with one another. But by the end of the story, she allows them to appreciate one another\u2019s flaws, to talk it out,\u201d Ortega explained of her role. \u201cIn this very isolated, dark, weird, dystopian world, she brings them back to knowing love. And what has been so true in all these different centuries of being human, and at the core of everything, is that it is always about love, and it\u2019s always going to be about love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Waititi, who not only directed but also co-wrote the film with Dahvi Waller, he worked closely with Ishiguro on translating the popular novel for the screen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRight from the start, I talked to Ishiguro and said, \u2018This is the kind of tone I\u2019m looking for. This is the sort of thing I want to do,\u2019 and he was so supportive. He said, \u2018I don\u2019t want you to do a faithful, super loyal adaptation of the book because that\u2019s going to be boring. Every time someone tries to do that with my work, it doesn\u2019t work out,\u2019\u201d Waititi said. \u201cSo he encouraged me to push it more in my direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Klara and the Sun<\/a>, Waititi\u2019s vision was informed by a history of telling stories led by younger protagonists, as well as his own life as a father. That helped him lean into what was on the page even when it diverged from it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile there are many themes in Ishiguro\u2019s novel, its most poignant touch upon the relationship between technology and humanity. Klara and the Sun is as much a conversation about how the development and use of technology, in particular ways, deteriorate Josie\u2019s experience of being alive as it is about how robot friend Klara discovers the ways her own technology cannot and will not ever replicate the distinctly human experience.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJenna Ortega, Taika Waititi and Amy Adams at the special screening.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNoam Galai\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s this idea of being lifted and giving our children all of these advantages. But as it shows, there\u2019s a great risk to that,\u201d noted Adams. \u201cIn our story, the stakes are very heightened, but I think everything\u2019s about the journey. This idea of chasing perfection, chasing achievement over chasing experience, is something that we have to examine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOrtega emphasized the message that sits at the heart of the book\u2019s ending. \u201cArtificial intelligence doesn\u2019t feel love; it doesn\u2019t know anything about it. It can be curious. It can try, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s the people that we\u2019re surrounded by that make life and living so special,\u201d Ortega said.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it comes to working on the film, its director, cast and studio leadership all underscored the power of human collaboration and creativity in bringing it to life. For Waititi, he \u201cdidn\u2019t get into making film to sit by myself in a room and type in prompts to make a movie. That just seems so boring and lame to me. I want to interact with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou get spontaneity, and the mistakes and the things where you stumble through a performance, and you discover things through getting a line wrong or trying to fix up a line you\u2019ve messed up. That\u2019s what makes us so unique and so amazing: the ability to pivot and to use our mistakes to make something more interesting,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think robots are trained on all the successes and all the perfect stuff that humans have made. You\u2019re not trained on the mistakes. There\u2019s a big discussion about AI coming in: Will people use it? How much will they use it? I know it\u2019s probably inevitable that we end up using it in our industry, but as long as it\u2019s used by humans as a tool, as opposed to a replacement \u2014 I don\u2019t want to replace humans. I want to work with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdded Adams, \u201cThe point of this movie and the novel is that the best that certain technology like AI can do is reflect ourselves back to us. It\u2019s our responsibility to take the opportunity to see the best in each other. If used correctly, advancements in technology can do amazing things. But if used incorrectly, it can separate us. We\u2019re at that threshold, and I really hope we choose each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKlara and the Sun hits theaters on Friday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taika Waititi\u2019s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro\u2019s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun, starring Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[365,105440,156,3685,17632,245891,409,111,139,69,3482,14914],"class_list":["post-636581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ai","tag-amy-adams","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-jenna-ortega","tag-klara-and-the-sun","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-red-carpet","tag-taika-waititi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636581","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=636581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}