Drawing on his own Jewish heritage and experiences growing up surrounded by prejudice, writer-director-actor Taika Waititi was excited to make a movie against hate through a satire of the Nazi culture at the height of World War II, until he saw himself dressed as Adolf Hitler for the first time. He said he felt "shame and embarrassment."
"Jojo Rabbit" tells the story of a boy in the Hitler Youth army who discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their house and things get complicated as the boy's imaginary friend is Hitler himself. Waititi plays the imaginary Hitler in the movie, which stars Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, and Rebel Wilson, among others. Wearing a Hitler costume was jarring, but Waititi said he eventually "came to the conclusion that it's not Hitler.
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"This character is conjured from the mind of a 10-year-old. So, he is a 10-year-old in a grown-up's body, and also one way of me like I think disempowering Hitler, was by taking over his body and putting those clothes on and taking his mustache and his haircut ... I enjoyed that the most really was like being able to ridicule him from within his clothes, I guess."
The root of the film began with the novel "Caging Skies" by Christine Leunens. While the book is more dramatic, Waititi decided to use that as a base while adding comedic elements.
Waititi remembers Johansson, who plays the young Nazi boy's mother, rolling her eyes at his costume. But what concerned Waititi was the emotional reaction of his young star, Roman Griffin Davis.
The movie is being released on Friday in theaters across the United States.
