Taika Waititi Quotes

It's called 'John Wick' - it's really about this guy's very simple journey. We just didn't want to clutter it. It's gratifying it in its own right, in its simplicity.

Every hero must return home. Starks to Winterfell. Harry to Privet Drive. Luke Skywalker to Tattoine. Katniss to District twelve. The fun is in seeing how they return.

We have invented a new human right here - the right to return home after a war.

I don't make unconventional stories; I don't make non-linear stories. I like linear storytelling a lot.

I still don't understand why the tag of 'action hero' follows me. My films have all these elements - romance, action and comedy. None of the fight sequences of my character is an act of randomness. There's a reason to action in my films.

As someone who flew two space capsules and twice landed in the ocean, I can attest from personal experience how much logistics work is needed to get you home.

Humanizing good people is kind of boring and I don't really see the value in it... humanizing tricky characters is exhilarating, and making audience films out of indie subjects excites me.

You can't really do a big character in an action film; you're already suspending your disbelief in the action, then to suspend your disbelief in the character is too much.

You can't visit readers where you think they are. You have to invite them home to where you are and try to lure them into your universe. That's the art of storytelling.

You'd be surprised how hard it is getting the human emotional arc in a script to work. Ultimately a director stands and falls by their ability to do that.

Then I got the offer to play Buck Rogers, but I turned it down thinking it was a cartoon character. Well I was wrong, it wasn't at all. So I read the script and decided I liked the character, it had a good concept.

I saw the president make the tough calls in the Situation Room - and today, our troops in Iraq have finally come home so America can do some nation building here at home. That was the change that we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.

Coming from TV and film, rule number one is that you always service the main character first and foremost. If that's not working, you've got nothing.

The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.

I agree with the President that second-guessing is not a strategy, but at the same time, I want to continue the dialogue that ultimately will lead to bringing all of our troops home.

When I watch movies - when I watch 'Star Wars' - you want to watch the fun characters, the diversions.

Everything starts with what's on the page, what a writer has come up with. And whether it is a big studio film or independent film, is the story being well told? Is it interesting? Is the character interesting? And is there something about the character that may stretch me?

Lots of times when I'm offered things, I can't see how a story gets filmed. Either it's too internal or it doesn't have a strong spine.

You don't put your personal viewpoints in a good movie. A movie should only be concerned with characters, not some big moral, although it's always underneath.

There's something about film that offers this opportunity to stick to a very, very clear single protagonist's point of view, and I like that.

You can't get around certain stuff, whether it's in Darfur or on your block at home. What makes us political is your home turf, your family, your life space. You walk down the street, and automatically a human being is territorial, and political happens in that.

Normally my films have a single thread of an emotion, an insight or one single belief, and then I turn the entire story and build it around that.

Getting back into the action genre is like going back home. It's great.

Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it.

We ended the war in Vietnam, and brought the troops home.