Oscars 2020: Taika Waititi Wins Historic Screenwriting Oscar for Jojo Rabbit (2024)

The swift rise of Taika Waititi hit a crescendo during the 92nd annual Academy Awards. The Jojo Rabbit filmmaker and star won an Oscar for adapted screenplay on Sunday night, the first Academy Award of his career and the first time an indigenous person has ever been given the honor in either screenwriting category. (Waititi is of Maori and Jewish descent.)

“Thank you. This is really light. This one’s light. It’s supposed to be heavy,” Waititi joked of his statuette before he dedicated the award to indigenous children around the world in a short but sweet speech. Backstage, Vanity Fair reporter Anthony Breznican watched Waititi celebrate with presenters Natalie Portman—who will also star for Waititi in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder—and Timothée Chalamet. “Oscar winner!” Chalamet shouted, jumping up and down. (For more on that moment and everything else backstage, check out our ongoing live blog.)

When he arrived in the press room backstage, he spent some time cracking jokes about child actors and, yes, Apple keyboards, but also said he hoped the film would serve as “a response to a resurgence of hate.” He noted that at the end of World War II, Nazis and hate speech were banned but now, “If you’re a Nazi, feel free to have a rally in Times Square.” He went on to say, “Something’s not right and we have forgotten the rules... and I feel the film has become more important and more relevant today. Which is a sad thing—but also good for me!”

Based on the book Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, Jojo Rabbit is a fantastical comedy-drama about a young boy living in Nazi Germany whose mother (played by Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson) has secretly provided refuge to a young Jewish girl. Throughout the film, the boy (Roman Griffin Davis), called Jojo Rabbit by his Nazi peers, engages in a relationship with Adolf Hitler (Waititi), his imaginary friend.

See Also

The 2020 Oscars: Live updates | CNN

“This idea of how war affects children is what led me to connect on a deeper level with the story and themes in Caging Skies,” Waititi wrote for Vanity Fair earlier this year. “The idea of trying to understand this little boy who we should despise, and seeing Nazi Germany falling apart through his eyes, that felt like a challenge.”

As did finding the humor in Hitler. “I’ve always used humor to present my ideas, and if I were to be true to myself and my sensibilities, this had to be the same. My laughs never come for free. I always knew I was in good company with the great satirists that came and went before me, but it still feels like my boldest film yet,” Waititi continued. “This subject matter is very sensitive, and I knew I had to get it right. ‘Pressure’ of the risk is the driving force of what keeps me going. That’s another reason I made Jojo Rabbit—because it felt scary to me.”

Throughout awards season, Waititi received praise for his film, including from Mel Brooks, who famously satirized Hitler in The Producers. “I just saw Jojo Rabbit, and it’s really a terrific and eloquent and beautiful picture,” Brooks said at the AFI Awards in January. This adapted screenplay win, however, felt like a slow development: Prognosticators initially pegged Greta Gerwig as the likely winner in the category for Little Women and her film won the USC Libraries Scripter award, a strong Oscar indicator (heading into this year, 8 of the last 10 winners had translated that award into an Oscar win). But Waititi triumphed with both the Writers Guild and BAFTAs and his presence on the campaign trail (and his budding friendship with Bong Joon Ho) helped turn him into one of the season’s more beloved personalities.

Jojo Rabbit received six Oscar nominations: picture, adapted screenplay, supporting actress, costume design, production design, and editing. Up next for Waititi: a return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to direct Thor: Love and Thunder.