Taika Waititi and Tessa Thompson Break Down 'Thor: Love and Thunder' "Taste The Rainbow" Scene

Hey everyone, I'm Taika Waititi.

And I'm Tessa Thompson.

And we are here from Thor Love and Thunder.

[Both laughing]

And we are gonna break down a scene.

From notes on a scene.

The atmosphere there has a darkness

like no other.

It's as if color fears to tread,

it's unmistakable.

Well then if it's color we need,

let's bring the rainbow.

[thundering effect]

Bring the rainbow.

Is that catch phrase or something?

I really wanted this film to be different,

to Thor Ragnarok and,

did I?

Did you?

Yeah, you did.

Thor Ragnarok was a good film,

and I felt it was gonna be very hard to top that.

So where do you take a character like that?

Yeah.

Then we realize what you least expect

from our Thor

or what you least expect

that you're gonna want to see.

Is Thor going through a midlife crisis?

Huh? Okay, cool.

This scene is called taste the rainbow,

we name scenes.

This is in Norway.

Yes.

It's in a town hall.

The Asgardians have, they're space refugees,

something has happened,

and they're trying to figure out how to fix it.

Exactly.

They're in the shadow realm.

How'd you know

The atmosphere there has a darkness

like no other.

Okay.

Does that look real?

[Tessa] In that particular shot, no actually.

[Tessa laughing]

It doesn't really right.

When you look close?

[Taika] Do I need to be more blue?

Well.

Well, yeah no.

Does he look real?

[Tessa] No. None of them.

[Taika] Does he look.

[Tessa] She, something looks very off

about this, but no, no, no.

He changes hues.

Don't you think?

[Taika] Yeah

[Tessa] But in the light sometimes he's blue.

sometimes he's a little grayish.

The atmosphere there has a darkness like no other.

It's as if color fears to tread

it's unmistakable.

Okay. This is one little funny thing,

that happens in this.

See this shot.

When I go, eh.

It's because it used to be when he would wake up

that was my reaction.

[Taika laughing]

But you just left it there randomly

but I kind of don't mind it.

Yeah look.

[Thor] It's unmistaken.

[Both laughing]

You said that?

I never noticed it!

I was never looking at you

Trust me I did.

It's kind of funny.

It's great.

It doesn't make any sense, but I love it.

[Both laughing]

That performance used to make sense because

he would wake up.

He'd go Ah!,

and then that was my reaction.

But now, I just do it for no reason,

which is cool,

and its also an indication

how sometimes,

someone can make

a performance look crazy when,

it wasn't

[Tessa laughing]

Can we also, I want to make it clear.

[Tessa] Okay.

[Taika] These two are the same heights

in real life.

[Tessa] In real life yeah.

[Taika] In real life.

Natalie Portman is on a deck

She was on a deck.

It's my New Zealand accent.

D

E

C

K

It, was many months of joking.

Now it was on a deck.

They would've to build the platform

It used to be Natalie here.

And this is her little feet there,

and they would build a platform.

Which we called a deck. We called it a deck and

it was like, and they'd like, ah

how big do you want the deck?

[Tessa laughing]

Where did that come from?

That came from Jen Robinson

who wrote in the film was wearing that one time.

Yeah, she was

When you first met her.

So the other writer on the film, Jen,

she was wearing a Phantom of the Opera sweater,

and I was like

it should just be that. Yeah it should be that.

And then we were talking about like

is she a basketball fan, yeah.

Musical theater fan, definitely.

But I think, yeah cats also

was a strong contender.

Yeah.

People were really talking about it a lot

Man. Well, the Phantom it's a classic.

Well then if it's color we need,

let's bring the rainbow.

[thundering effect]

Bring the rainbow,

is that catch phrase or something?

So when Natalie flies off here

So, basically what happens.

So, in this moment you were there.

Yeah.

You get Natalie to go like this

she walks over and she goes.

And then, and its what she'd do

she'll go Hoo!

and then she goes

Yeah.

Walk out of the scene.

Exactly.

And then to come back she was just like,

and then everyone's like, eh.

Yeah. And it was like,

or like in your case

And then you just put it anywhere

in the movie and I look crazy.

And then what happens?

You take that footage, you put in the computer

and add like little bits of like

blue lightning stuff.

And then that

[Taika imitating lighting sounds]

a little bit of lightning. Yeah.

You know, we didn't have,

actually on this one,

there wasn't as much wire work

as there was on the last one.

You're right.

No, there wasn't.

There was a, yeah.

A lot of the times when you see characters,

like, you know,

jumping or flying through space

where they're sort of suspended

They'd have like a harness thing,

You have a harness on.

And then you have like all these things,

and then some wires that would go up like this.

And then.

You're like

There's like this big guys

on the other side And they'll pull on you.

So here you go, another little diagram.

This is like, the person,

this is wire, the wire will be attached thing.

And then wire will go across here,

like this sort of thing.

And then, and there'd be a big guy here

like this big muscles, and he's holding onto it.

Yeah.

And he will just like, pull the thing

and then this person will

[Taika whistling]

up into the air.

That's why I work.

Yeah. There wasn't as much.

There wasn't as much, no.

Why?

Why not?

Not. I knew it.

Yeah!

[Tessa laughing]

Weirdly on these big movies

everything takes so much longer to shoot.

But the main thing on this was that

we just kept experimenting with the story,

and trying to figure out like the best narrative

and add new dialogue

and we'd come back and we just wanted

like one more angle, just someone explaining,

oh here's, this what the villain wants?

Or like, yeah, this is what we're gonna do.

Oh, do you think what I'm thinking?

But that's, what's cool.

That's, what's the pleasure

of getting to make films like this right,

cause when we make films for $2,

you just like pray for the best

and you don't have a chance to go in again

You know, you get like two takes and this.

Yeah, yeah.

And then, and sometimes there are beautiful

happy accidents that happen because of that.

But in this case,

you get to really perfect the thing

and figure out,

okay how do we totally keep the pop that we want?

Keep the humor that we want.

Be exploring these characters dynamics,

and also help the audience understand

what they need to understand.

Some of this dialogue

we ended up having to do in re-shoots,

because it was clarifying some stuff around

where we were going and the nature of the battle.

So there's like exposition,

but, I think something

that we're always trying to do

is how do we make exposition snappy and

Yeah

Fun.

Cause exposition in a film is boring

and it's always this.

You're like,

okay, I guess I'm absorbing information.

But if you can do it in like a fun way where like, you know,

the characters are all getting to take part

and it's what hard,

you've got four characters in the scene

and two of them are wearing red capes.

One of them is in

the Phantom of the Opera sweatshirt.

Sometimes third times a charm

Bring the rainbow is that catch phrase or something.

She's only been a Thor for a minute.

I mean, saving lives

She's quite good at,

but the rest of it, she needs work.

This is interesting.

So this is Taika performing Korg,

but sometimes he's in the suit

like motion capture suit,

whilst directing.

That's right.

And sometimes you wouldn't be there

at all right.

So we'd be.

Yeah. But a lot of time I was.

But so basically like the head,

you know, that's all there

and then it was attached to a stick,

like this.

[Tessa] Yeah.

[Taika] Which was attached to my back.

And so my head.

[Tessa] Was there.

[Taika] My head was here.

[Tessa] Yeah.

[Taika] And so I would be walking around like this,

holding onto this thing.

[Tessa] Yeah.

And this thing here was attached on a harness.

Remember that?

And I also had the camera thing

on top of my head to record my face.

Yeah. And then he had like dots all over his face

so they can record his facial expressions.

But the challenge for us is always

for our eye line

we have to be looking at his to look fake head.

[Taika] They have to look up here, opposed to obviously

real head my real head here.

That's the money maker.

That's, it's very hard to not look at that.

[Tessa] It is very hard.

[Taika] And so I had to keep going.

I got a lot better at it this movie though,

remember Thor Ragnarok, I was, hopeless.

Let's just accentuate that.

[Tessa] Yeah.

[Taika] What he would want.

[Tessa] Yes, exactly.

[Taika] Slightly bigger.

[Tessa] But those, those are all real. That's not all

[Taika] All real stuff.

[Tessa] CG those muscles.

We shot this scene

three times over the course of a year.

Nature of movie making is sometimes you,

or continue to write the film

as you're in post production.

It, it had to do with like rewrites around

just clarifying

the logic,

right? Of.

Of what the villain wants.

Yeah exactly. We're not gonna tell you

what the villain wants.

Go see the movie.

I mean, saving lives.

She's quite good at,

but the rest of it, she needs work.

How many catch phrases have there been?

A lot.

Yep, jumped the gun.

Hang on, he moves through shadows

and he is going to the shadow realm.

It seems like that's where he is gonna be the most powerful.

You're right, we can't just go marching in there.

It could be a trap.

Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?

I'm thinking it.

What are we thinking?

Thinking what?

I'm thinking it too.

Omnipotent City.

Do you think this is true,

which I've always heard that

comedy comes in threes.

Oh?

Is that a true thing?

Because it feels like it is cause he,

I go are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Yeah.

Think what I'm thinking.

And then she does the Zeus, Zeus Zeus.

[indistinct]

Is that you thinking what I'm thinking

[indistinct]

[indistinct]

That's what we just did every scene right?

Just the

[indistinct]

[Taika] Look at the expression, This was my expression,

But this is what it looks like.

How many of those like,

things did you do in post?

Like did you just do a whole run

of the film where they just like left the mic open

and you're just like

Yep.

I really did all of that.

This goat,

rams head

drawing here.

[Tessa] Yeah.

[Taika] That's that's a ram.

It's a male sheep.

Cool.

So Thor underneath the, now you don't often see

if you see the film THor gets stripped down

you see his bare chest

and you'll see as all Asgardians,

if you've done your research,

all Asgardians have six nipples,

and just go down there like that.

And that's how they feed their young.

Men usually do it.

They just lie on the side.

And and the little Asgardian

it's like piglets,

they come up and just suckle.

I mean, that's a spoiler,

no one has known that about,

Vikings

that's why they cover them up.

So each one of those unscrews

Unscrew it and then you can like,

just milk it.

This was a hard one though.

This was a hard one.

The tricky thing around this movie

is that the movie is actually doing

a lot of things.

And I think Taika's strength has always been

if you look at his filmography in general

is to be able to hold a lot of

kind of tones

inside of a movie and have it feel cohesive.

But I think this one

in particular,

really assed that

there was like a lot to balance.

I think, you know,

in terms of like the comedy,

the love aspect,

the sort of overall, yeah, it was,

it was in some ways

a more ambitious movie than Ragnarok

even though Ragnarok was so sprawling

and it was a lot to sort of take over

and reimagine the franchise.

But this one was also the thing of like,

how do you make a second installment of this?

That feels as exciting.

But also he's like trying to make a,

you know a romantic comedy

Romantic, weird Mills and Boon,

melodramatic romance.

Inside of also, you know,

a superhero movie where there's

There's like real human problems

Yeah and introduce a new villain.

And he has pathos.

And so it was challenging.

So I think We were all in it.

We were all in it.

We were all in it together.

Oh my God.

What? Say it.

I just noticed something.

No.

Oh, now I gotta know,

[Taika whispering]

Oh my God, yeah.

[laughing]

You'll never know.