Next Goal Wins: Taika Waititi on racism, his legacy and the future of film-making

Taika Waititi should be on top of the world. We’ve met in a stylish suite in a flash hotel in the heart of Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter to talk about his highly anticipated new movie, Next Goal Wins. He’s jetted into town from Los Angeles to promote the film, its release giving closure to a project that’s been kicking about since 2015.

But Waititi’s mood is as reflective as the deep blue waters of Auckland’s harbour, which crash and bash just outside the suite’s long windows on this deep grey day. As we chat, his answers come to resemble the heavy clouds filling the sky, occasionally dumping big buckets of heaving rain on to the city.

Next Goal Wins is a light, breezy underdog tale. As such, I did not expect to end up discussing societal racism, grim death and the end of his movie-making career.

Taika Waititi. Photo / Theo McInnes

“For me, it’s like, am I into this stuff anymore?” he’ll muse. A startlingly candid admission that catches me off guard. Waititi has truly conquered Hollywood. His success enables him to make anything he wants, with anyone he wants, for any studio he wants. He’s living the dream and talking about wanting to wake up.

But before we get to that, we need to talk about Next Goal Wins. It’s based on a true story and follows a troubled American soccer coach and his efforts to turn around the misfortunes of the atrociously bad football team of American Samoa following their 31-0 thrashing by Australia in a 2001 World Cup qualifier game.

It’s a story that was bound to attract Waititi’s attention. It’s quirky, full of heart and revolves around a middle-aged man wrestling through a mid-life crisis - something that has become a running theme throughout his work.

“Funny, that,” he says with an exaggerated sigh and a grim chuckle. “I feel like I’ve gone through a lot of mid-life crises in my life. I faced my first mid-life crisis when I was probably about 11 years old.”

Next Goal Wins also continues his commitment to telling indigenous stories and using his global platform to bring under-represented cultures into the spotlight. The movie predominately stars Polynesian actors, and its one internationally bankable star, Michael Fassbender, who plays plagued coach Thomas Rongen, is unceremoniously shoved into the bottom left corner of the movie’s poster. But the fact it’s a Taika Waititi film ensures audience interest and press coverage on a truly global scale.

But Pasifika is not the only under-represented culture in the movie. One of the main characters is the team’s star player, the fa’afafine footballer Jaiyah Saelua, the first transgender player to ever take to the field in a Fifa World Cup. Appropriately, Saelua is played by fa’afafine actor Kaimana in the movie. This will no doubt be the first exposure of fa’afafine culture to a large chunk of the overseas audience.

“In my family there are - I’m Māori, so we don’t call them fa’afafine - but it was something very normal growing up,” he says. “I’d see them around, and it was just a normal part of this amazing culture. That’s how we wanted to approach it in the film as well. To normalise it and not make it a big subject. They’re like flowers, and the world’s a better place with flowers.”

The movie is small and personal and a far cry from the mega-budget, effects-heavy extravaganzas of the Thor films he helms for Disney’s Marvel Studios or upcoming projects like Akira, a live-action remake of the classic manga film, or the Star Wars movie he’s working on. He was only able to make it due to the shuffling schedule of the blockbusters he works on, which unexpectedly saw him with a free six months at the tail end of 2019.

“I didn’t want to feel like I’d wasted that year, so I pulled the script out to see if we could get it into a place where we could shoot it quickly,” he explains. “We threw it together and within three months were shooting.”

Having spent two years working on Thor: Ragnarok, he wanted to get back to basics.

Taika Waititi's latest film, Next Goal Wins, is based on the true story of an American football coach's efforts to revamp the American Samoa national team after a devastating loss to Australia. Photo / Searchlight Pictures

“I was like, let’s get back to the style I’m used to. A 25-day shoot, just all of our friends involved and going as fast as possible. High-energy, and get it done.”

The production moved fast, but release schedules are methodically planned. Next Goal Wins was kicked from pillar to post on the release schedule, and when Covid hit, Waititi worried it wouldn’t come at all.

“There’s a real fear now where you put all your hard work into something and they throw it straight on streaming [services],” he says. “To have this on the big screen is amazing. That’s all you want when you make something.”

The first inkling of his current headspace comes when he describes Next Goal Wins as “an antidote” to spending years in Hollywood.

“Coming home and being around my people and my friends and the people that I’d shot films with before was really important. I got the old crew back together and had the feeling that this is was why I got into film,” he says. “The happiest I’ve been was making films like Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople and What We Do in the Shadows. And now this. Some of my happiest moments of shooting have been on this film.”

Similar to how Jojo Rabbit captured the mood of the moment by satirising Hilter and Nazis during the thick of Donald Trump’s presidency, the Maga movement and the inexplicable rise of America’s far-right, Next Goal Wins could be seen as a commentary or reaction to the raging gender wars and politicisation.

“Isn’t it crazy?” Waititi says, almost in disbelief. “It’s funny, because I wrote Jojo Rabbit in 2011. There was no inkling that Trump was going to run for president and I had no desire to make a commentary on what was happening back then. The world was still racist, but nothing was going on like that in 2011 that I was aware of.”

“Jojo Rabbit just happened to come out while everyone was a Nazi, and this one is coming out now while no one knows how to deal with the trans community and is freaking out. Surely there are other things people should be more freaked out about? This delicate little film touches on the subject and just says how beautiful it can be if you accept it. Just chill, embrace it, be happy, and let these people be part of the team. Think about this soccer team as humanity. That’s a good little parallel, I think.”

But could the world really ever be one big, chilled-out, happy team? Waititi hopes so. And not just so he can stop talking about this stuff. He describes progress as being like a constant yo-yo.

“I’d love to think we’re getting better. Whenever I feel we’re a step forward, we suddenly go back. And not like one step back, it’s like five steps back. We are making progress, just sometimes the knockbacks have been pretty severe,” he says. “But we have to keep believing in ourselves and the good of people and the human spirit. Everyone is trying to do the right thing. It’s just that some people’s idea of the right thing is f***ed up.”

Next Goal Wins is a departure from Waititi's large-scale projects like the Thor films. Photo / Searchlight Pictures

He laughs softly, then says, “Man, I can’t wait for the day when it’s not even a conversation piece and we don’t have to talk about it. Everyone can get on with other sh**.”

He’s done more than most to not just normalise these stories, but to also lower the ladder below him and wave people on board so they can tell their stories - although when I put this to him, he grins and says, “How do you know I’m not getting everyone on board and at the same time also drilling holes in the bottom of the boat?” Which is pretty funny, but then he gets more serious and explains why representation is so important.

“When I grew up, there were hardly any Māori faces on-screen. It’s amazing that I can go back to the coast and have kids from my community say they’re going to be a film-maker or an actor, or do things in the arts. It’s unheard of. When I was a kid, there were like three jobs; forestry, growing dope or not [having] a job. Now there’s acceptance around this idea that kids can be expressive and creative and be in the arts. It’s unstoppable now. Which is really cool.”

This is when I asked him about his re-occurring theme of mid0life crises, and he sighed and said, “Funny that”, and began pondering if the shine was coming off Tinseltown.

“It’s like chapters in my life. There’ll be an end to this film-making sh**. At some point I’ll be like, ‘I’m bored’, and do something else. I only started making films when I was 30. It was something I hadn’t tried, so I thought, ‘I’ll give this a go’, and then was forced to fall in love with it because it did really well. Now it’s my job. But I would like to do a few other things before I die that have nothing to do with film or the industry or the arts. I don’t know what.”

Catching himself, he smiles and says, “It’s coming off as a little negative right now, because I do love it. It’s just I’m probably more likely to ask questions like ‘Do I still like it?’ a lot more nowadays. It’s a hard job. The idea of shooting a film? I’m like, ‘F***ing hell, it’s gonna take aaaaaaages’.”

Time, he reckons, is not on his side. He’s done the math.

“You get to an age where you’re like, ‘How many films have I got left in me?’. 10? If I’m lucky. That’s one every two years if I’m working my ass off. So I’ve got to be selective of what these 10 movies are, man. I can’t f*** around anymore. It’s got to be special, it’s got to mean something to me. At this age, you start questioning your legacy; what am I leaving behind? What are the things I want to be proud of?”

He abruptly pauses and reconsiders his position.

“Or, just not ask those questions at all and f***ing go for it and see what happens,” he says with a growing enthusiasm. “That’s probably the way you should be living your life. Because here’s the thing; none of us are going to be remembered in 50 years, so it doesn’t matter.”

Then, before I can say anything, he fires a question at me: “Who directed Casablanca?” I have to admit I don’t know.

“Exactly,” he says, with morbid glee. “So who’s gonna remember me? Who gives a f***?”

Taika Waititi with Next Goal Wins stars Michael Fassbender and Kaimana. Photo / Searchlight Pictures

He’s warming to this fatalistic train of thought. He looks around at the suite filled with publicists, cameramen and this entertainment journalist, gestures at all of us and says, “Who’s gonna remember any of you?” before taking the liberty of answering: “No one.”

Then, with a triumphant splutter, he says, “Your family is not even going to remember you!” Then he looks straight at me and shoots, “What’s the name of your great-great-grandmother?”

“On what side?” I joke, but Waititi is not amused, and I only get a “pffft” back. With cold finality, he says, “You’re just gonna be a photo on a mantlepiece, bro.”

But before the mood can match the dark sky outside, he laughs and says, “This takes all the pressure off! Just live your life. Be happy.”

Are you happy? I ask.

Without hesitation, he replies, “Very happy”, and then with a macabre grin, Taika Waititi adds the kicker: “Now that I’ve reminded myself that we’re all gonna die and no one will remember us.”

Next Goal Wins is in cinemas from December 7, with previews from December 3.