THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 93 NOVEMBER 6, 2019
ANATOMY
OF A CONTENDERAWARDS SEASON
2019demand: It insisted that Waititi,
who had hefty roles in both Boy
and Shadows, play Hitler. The
filmmaker, who is of Russian
Jewish descent, hesitated. “I just
didn’t want to have myself get
clouded with negative shit while
trying to play someone so evil,” he
says. “But my ego is so massive, it
was bound to happen.”
The rest of the cast was
assembled quickly, as the clock
started ticking down on a spring
2018 start date. Johansson came
aboard after she’d been tipped
off to the project by her Avengers
co-star Chris Hemsworth. Like
everyone, she was reluctant at
first, but her agent kept bug-
ging her to look at the script.
“I cried when I read it, which
rarely happens,” she says. After
Johansson, Rockwell signed on as
Jojo’s disillusioned Hitler Youth
instructor and Rebel Wilson as a
fellow teacher and book-burning
obsessive. Finding the right boy
to play Jojo, though, took longer
than expected.
Waititi had some experience
working with kids — two of hisand was looking for more auteur-
driven movies with challenging
concepts. “People think it was
Thor that made [studios] confi-
dent enough to back Jojo Rabbit,”
says Waitit’s longtime producer
Carthew Neal, “but it was actu-
ally his earlier work they were
responding to.” In fact, Waititi
had just begun production on
Ragnarok when Searchlight
tracked him down in Australia to
tell him it wanted to make Jojo.
The studio, however, had one
features, Boy and Wilderpeople,
were led by minors — which
helped during the search. “When
you’re casting kids, you’re look-
ing for somebody who is like the
character,” he says. “Once you’ve
found someone like that, then
you don’t have to ask them to act.”
Casting associates were dis-
patched to primary schools across
the U.K. and New Zealand while
the usual channels were explored
in Los Angeles. German children
were considered, but only if theyspoke fluent English. Still, after
auditioning more than a thou-
sand kids, Waititi still didn’t
have a Jojo. And there was only a
month left before production was
set to begin.
“With Taika, there is a confi-
dence that it will all work out,
but it might be last minute,” says
Neal. “[My job] became about
keeping everyone else calm.”ROMAN GRIFFIN DAVIS WAS ON
the Fox lot auditioning for Matt121 Taika Waititi on
set as imaginary
Adolf Hitler.
2 “It’s a hard thing
playing such a
horrible person,
but he always
had so much joy,”
says castmember
Thomasin
McKenzie of Waititi
having to pull
double duty as
filmmaker and
performer. Adds
Sam Rockwell
(left, with Scarlett
Johansson, Roman
Griffin Davis,
Waititi and Rebel
Wilson), “He has a
childlike quality
to him and is a bit
of an anarchist.”
3 “I have read
enough scripts in
my lifetime that I
can spot the ones
that know exactly
what they want to
be,” says Johansson
of her first reaction
to reading Jojo.
4 Waititi, on
the set of Jojo
Rabbit, began his
filmmaking career
with an Oscar
nomination for
short Two Cars,
One Night, only
his second
directorial effort.34