Taika Waititi reveals Donald Trump’s demands for 2012 NBC commercial
Back in 2012, New Zealand film director Taika Waititi worked with Donald Trump on an advertisement for NBC. It was called ‘Brotherhood of Man’ and was aired during the Super Bowl, featuring characters from The Office, 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live.
When appearing on the SmartLess podcast, Waititi revealed Trump’s demands on the commercial, noting, “I directed Trumpy. There was a piece of paper with a list of demands. The height of the camera had to be a certain height to make him look a little thinner.”
“I think it had whatever the Pantone for orange was that he had to appear as on screen,” Waititi added. “He had a makeup person who was also his ego booster and she would touch him up and say, ‘Oh, Mr. Trump, oh Mr. Trump.'”
Eventually, the exposure of the commercial would lead Waititi to direct the Marvel movie Thor 2, although the director admitted that such a project was never at the top of his list of priorities.
“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” he said. “It wasn’t on my plan for my career as an auteur. But I was poor and I’d just had a second child, and I thought, ‘You know what, this would be a great opportunity to feed these children.'”
“And Thor, let’s face it — it was probably the least popular franchise,” the director continued. “I never read Thor comics as a kid. That was the comic I’d pick up and be like ‘Ugh.’ And then I did some research on it, and I read one Thor comic or 18 pages, or however long they are. I was still baffled by this character.”
Waititi’s most recent film is Next Goals Wins, starring Michael Fassbender.
