Hunt For The Wilderpeople director Taika Waititi is known for both making good movies and making appearances in them. And he hasn't let the scope or profile of his next film, Thor: Ragnarok. He's donned performance capture gear to play an alien called Korg.
A character from the Planet Hulk storylines from which the movie partially draws, he's eight feet tall and made of rocks. He proves helpful to Thor (Chris Hemsworth) when the Asgardian is banished to the planet Sakaar and must learn to survive there. And don't expect that, just because he's huge and rocky, that he'll sound like he gargles gravel.
"We wanted to change the idea of the obvious choice of how the character would sound – he’s huge and heavy but he has a very light soul,"" Waititi told the LA Times during a tour of the Marvel Studios offices. "Obviously, being made of rocks, we would have gotten someone like the Rock to play him, but there wasn’t enough chicken or salmon in Australia to sustain both him and Chris. So we got the next best thing, which is this super hot young character actor named Taika Waititi, who I’ve personally come to love. As a director, I just found I had just all the time in the world for him and I wanted to give him take after take." It's so nice when a director finds a fresh new talent to nurture!
Thor: Ragnarok will be out on 27 October in the UK. An we can expect to hear more from Waititi between now and then.
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