Taika Waititi mixed jokes and sincerity in his acceptance speech for the Norman Lear Achievement Award on Saturday at the Producers Guild Awards for his work in television. He thanked his partners at FX and on the shows Reservation Dogs and What We Do in the Shadows.
“Thank you so much for believing in Indigenous stories and believing they could be more than just brown people standing on a mountain playing a flute talking to ancestors,” he said.
Waititi also thanked the film companies Searchlight, Disney and Marvel, who released his films Jojo Rabbit, Next Goal Wins and the Thor sequels, and Bird Runningwater, who programmed his first short film at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, leading to his opportunities in Hollywood.
In a moment of either humility or irreverence, Waititi admitted he does not know what he’s doing. But, he is in good company.
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“None of us do,” Waititi said. “You don’t. I’ve seen all your stuff. You don’t know what you’re doing. None of us do and that’s what makes it fun. So continue to have fun because this isn’t really a real job. One day they will find out and they’ll come for us.”
Waititi concluded by thanking his mother for exposing him to television in the first place, calling it “My original babysitter. Probably my real mum. Think about it, the ‘80s, television raised me and it fed me on CHiPs and Benson and MASH. And now I get to create stories that do the same thing for a whole new generaiton of kids being ignored by their parents.”
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