TORONTO (AP) ā Sports typically culminate, after stirring locker-room speeches, in a dramatic bid for athletic glory. Taika Waititi's concerns the quest of a historically bad national soccer team, the 2011 American Samoa men's squad, in their struggle to qualify for the FIFA World Cup after an infamous 31-0 drubbing against Australia.
āNext Goal Wins," inspired by is a sports movie that delights in upending the conventions of sports movies. (Michael Fassbender plays the coach brought in to turn the team around.) For Waititi, it's a typically deconstructionist approach that leans more into the charisma of its Polynesian cast (among them Oscar Kightly and Kaimana, as the trans player Jaiyah Saelua) than rah-rah win-or-lose dramatics.
āI think all my films are feel-good films, but I feel that more and more thatās becoming less normal and more of a risky thing to do,ā Waititi says. āWhich makes no real sense because you go to the movies to escape.ā
The 48-year-old MÄori filmmaker of and met a reporter the morning after āNext Goal Winsā premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. He was speaking while the were ongoing, which, for him, was a welcome hiatus after a whirlwind stretch of work, with plenty of projects (including a āStar Warsā film in development) still in the wings.
Waititi, himself, doesnāt know much about soccer and professes to know even less after making āNext Goal Wins,ā which opens in theaters Friday. He's also, as he said in the interview, less and less interested in Hollywood, a game he's already tempted to walk away from.
AP: Are you a fan of any sports movies?
WAITITI: I donāt know. I donāt really watch that many sports movies. Iād say I like them but I canāt really remember many of them.
AP: Not āAny Given Sundayā? You quote from it in the film.
WAITITI: I just remember that being so long. So long and so many zoom shots. No, I like that film. I think āCool Runningsā is probably the closest to this.
AP: Your last āThorā movie took apart masculinity and superhero convention, and āNext Goal Winsā seems just as disinterested in sports movie traditions.
WAITITI: Yeah. Well, my second film ("Boy") is a sort of deconstructed anti-feelgood family film. Itās just a comedy about child abuse. I guess āWhat We Do in the Shadowsā is the same. Just trying to fight against what the normal filmmaking would be or what the normal idea of what that film should be. Iām interested in soccer but Iām not passionate about it. I donāt care about it like I care about stories about people, stories about family.
AP: Your films return often to the idea of family. You've said your notion of family isn't defined by blood.
WAITITI: I have a big family but a couple friends are way closer to me than any of my family. For me, this idea of blood family being so important, it comes from when villages were tiny and people in Europe were obsessed with keeping the bloodline alive. I just donāt think itās such an important thing anymore. Adoption is such a great thing because itās not who you come from, itās who raises you. You adopt a kid, they become a version of you because of the things you teach them and how you raise them.
AP: Was there anything about your upbringing that led you to feel that way?
WAITITI: Having kids of my own solidified this hunch that I had. Some of it comes from wondering why thereās still racism and how kids can still be raised to be homophobic. Itās clear itās just families perpetuating the ideas that they were taught. You just hope that cycles changes enough and breaks enough as society grows. If you just raise your kids to not be anti-gay, chances are their kids wonāt be, either. Itās really easy.
AP: Along with āReservation Dogs,ā which you helped create, āNext Goal Winsā captures Indigenous people in a celebratory, less self-serious way than we often see in film.
WAITITI: For good reason, there needs to be respect. But I think Polynesian, Pasifika people, weāre very self-deprecating. We like to laugh at ourselves. If this was made by a Westerner or was a white-led film, it would be just too respectful and the kind of saccharine bulls-ā. Thatās the reason Native Americans have been misrepresented for so long in film. Itās not because itās not an authentic portrayal of what they look like. Theyāre always portrayed as stoic, mysterious, quiet, wise characters who speak in sage advice passed down by ancestors. Itās like, god, what a boring existence if thatās the way you live. And itās not the way we live. This is why I really believe films about cultures need be made by people from that culture or who have at least lived amongst that culture.
AP: What was it like assembling a cast of largely Indigenous actors for a production shot in Hawaii?
WAITITI: To be able to swim while youāre shooting and go to the beach before work and after work when the sun is going down and youāre losing light, go home, play with the kids, have dinner. I understand now why Adam Sandler did all those films in Hawaii. A lot of people like to torture themselves in filmmaking. They want to go and live in the snow and eat carcasses and live the experience. I donāt. I grew up super poor and I donāt want to do that again. I basically hate working and want to retire, but if I have to work, Iāll make it as pleasant as I can.
AP: But you work all the time.
WAITITI: Yeah, but do I? People say I work all the time. Only I know the truth. Listen, your name can be a lot of headlines about work that apparently youāre doing. Doesnāt mean youāre doing it. Having some press release about me being attached to a project, thatās someone else doing the work. Itās not me doing the work.
AP: Is this you saying youāre not doing a āStar Warsā film?
WAITITI: Iām not saying anything about anything. Iām not having any of these conversations because Iām not allowed to. I canāt wait for the strike to be over but, selfishly, this has probably been the best thing for me, in terms of me getting to take a break. I needed to be forced to stop working for a bit.
AP: How have you been spending your time?
WAITITI: Now and then Iāll think about ideas I might want to do. And then very quickly I get very tired just thinking about them and I fall asleep or find anything else in the world to do thatās not a job. This summer I was in Europe, enjoying the sun, back on beaches. Itās all I want to do for the rest of my life. Go to the beach. I grew up on beaches and then I worked for so long without getting a chance to go back to the beach until this film. This is probably what reminded me ā just like Michaelās character learning thereās more to life than football ā thereās more to life than film. Thereās more to life than being in the entertainment industry. You think itās going to be so cool ā what a great life itās going to be in show business. Hollywood is just sad people eating lukewarm food out of cardboard boxes in offices with windows looking on other offices.
AP: But youāve started to think about whether you need to keep working?
WAITITI: Oh, I know I donāt. Iām already ā my plan, basically, is to figure out how to quit. (Laughs) To figure out how can I comfortably stop doing anything. What I need to do is get a big piece of wood and some sand paper and just sand it. Keep sanding it everyday until I die. Out in my backyard looking out at the sea. āIām going out to sand my bit of wood, darling!ā
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Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
