Taika Waititi, in full Taika David Waititi, also known as Taika David Cohen, (born August 16, 1975, Raukokore, New Zealand), New Zealand comedian, director, writer, and actor who was known for his anarchic sensibility and eye for the absurd as well as for a generally humane and kind worldview. Waititi was the son of a Māori father who was an artist and a mother of mostly Russian Jewish descent who worked as a teacher. The couple divorced when he was a young child, and he grew up mostly with his mother in Wellington, New Zealand, with many visits to his