During SXSW, amongst the various New Zealand films garnering buzz during the festival, Eagle vs Shark drew a fair bit more talk than the others. Given that thematically, it seemed to strike some of the same chords as Napoleon Dynamite, and looking at Dynamite's success at the box office, that was very good buzz to have.

Personally, I'd never been on the Jared Hess bandwagon with that particular film, but there was something about the previews for Eagle vs Shark that struck me differently. After having a chance to sit down with director Taika Waititi (now credited as Taika Cohen on the finished product) and star Loren Horsley (who happens to be Taika girlfriend and partner), I think the difference may lie in the very personable creative forces that helped put the film together. Taika and Loren sat with me over their breakfast at the Four Seasons before they had to depart back home to New Zealand.

Enrique Gomez: Taika, the old saying is that "drama is easy and comedy is hard." You started out with stand-up comedy before you got into Sundance with your short. I'm curious what the challenges are in doing something as a filmmaker where you can control the parameters and circumstances of a scene, versus doing stand-up and improv where you may be required to create more on the fly?

EG: You two are a couple, but you also worked with Jemaine with your comedy troop in New Zealand before you two became a couple. Obviously the three of you are very close knit, but I wondered if that changed the dynamics on the set at all?

Loren Horsley: We've been friends since we were 16. As a group we've been friends, we've been doing things together since we were 16.

TW: Since you were 16 (smiling).

LH: True, brain dead (laughing). But it made it a thousand times lovelier.

TW: For me making my first film, it made everything a lot less stressful, bearable. I didn't have to deal with anyone's ego. I know this guy so well, it was easier to communicate ideas to him. Also, the most important thing is that we had so much fun working on it.

LH: There's lots of chemistry and huge amount of love between all of us there.

EG: It's nice having that support network when things go bad.

LH: It was very strange though, to be kissing one of your best friends on the set.

TW: That was strange for those two but I really didn't care. I thought at first "Oh God, this is going to be weird," but really, being on set and having everything else going through my mind with directing the film, it completely left my mind. It also helps that she looks so different in the film.

EG: I can definitely agree with that.

LH: (laughing) Good wig.

TW: Her character is so strange. She wasn't my girlfriend, she was this strange awkward person... Lily. She was Lily and so I didn't think of her in that way.

EG: Workshopping this at Sundance and then turning it into a film, what kind of timeframe did that take to turn out a finished product?

TW: Well Loren and I worked on the story together, got the script done really pretty fast.

LH: Really quickly, yeah.

TW: And then I submitted it to Sundance, and they invited us down. And we worked on that in the labs for... about a month, workshopping scenes. Loren was there to work as the actor, which was great since I'd written most of it for her specifically. And then after that month workshopping, reading the script, working on scenes, in a really intensive workshop. That was in July of 2005.

LH: And we shot in October.

EG: So roughly a 19 month turnaround from starting the workshop to putting it in the can. That's a nice turnaround.

TW: Yes.

EG: Loren, there's a story about when you were developing Lily, you "took her out in public" to try and get the character refined while you were workshopping. Walking down the street you described people's reactions as "the parting of the Red Sea." How did you come to formulate this character, and what did you hope to achieve with her?

LH: Well I was really bored being typecast in New Zealand as playing this kind of bubbly blonde type of part.

TW: Bimbo.

LH: Yes, bimbo (laughing). And so I wanted to play a different character with a lot of longing and lot of love in Lily. Because I think there's a real beauty in it, and it's an interesting kind of flavor, there's a lot of depth in it. I was playing myself as a teenager in a lot of ways. I kind of wanted to get some of that stuff out. And so that's how she sort of turned up. In Salt Lake City, Taika had about a week before I turned up to workshop with them, and I don't know if you've been in Salt Lake City, but there's not a huge amount to do. And so I kind of took her out as an experiment. And it was amazing to see. When people lack confidence, how the world treats people who lack confidence.

TW: Like dogs smelling fear.

LH: Yeah, exactly.

EG: I can see that. Jumping around a bit with that, typically whether we're talking a big budget Hollywood production or even in indie pictures, unless you get really out there into very obscure films, the process of falling in love tends to get a bit stylized in the film treatment, in terms of the images that the people embody or the process by which they come to fall in love. This film is definitely not a conventional falling in love story.

LH: It's unromantic.

EG: Do you think that is something that will appeal to people more? Is that something you were trying to go for to make it more resonant? To make it something people will see and say, "I was that awkward when the big moment happened for me."

LH: Empathy was definitely something we wanted.

TW: I definitely think people will be able to respond to it in more a personal way because they do relate to the characters more, this is actually how it's like. I've never met anybody who's been in a relationship the way the mainstream run of the mill romantic comedy is based on. With the cute meet, they get together and then it gets so... in those movies I guess the first few times it worked well, and there are lots of variations on that them that you can do. But no every romantic comedy seems to follow the same basic structure. Because we here in New Zealand haven't made a lot of romantic comedies before, and the last thing on my mind to do with my first film was make a romantic comedy. We never really watched any romantic comedies before filming.

LH: We didn't think of it as a romantic comedy.

TW: It was more just a kind of strange, awkward dark comedy based around two people trying to fall in love. So there were no real rules for us.

LH: One rule we did have actually was that we wanted the transformation in the characters to be internal not external. In a lot of these films, the girl ends up all pretty and the guy ends up handsome. They are looking lovely together. We really didn't want that. The models with our movie were things like Welcome to the Dollhouse and Buffalo '66.

EG: I was wondering about that, what other influences played into the process. Some of the things I've read about this film compared it to Napoleon Dynamite, but I know the first time I saw the trailer and the clip on the SXSW website from the film the first thing it evoked in my mind was Wes Anderson

LH: We love Wes Anderson! That's brilliant!

EG: I saw elements of both Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums. Was there anyone else you drew from or inspired by?

TW: I know that some of my favorite filmmakers are people like Wes Anderson and Todd Solondz. And so not consciously, but certain films you like you're going to draw from them more so than some big budget Hollywood blockbuster.

EG: I think those kind of films (indies) are the ones people can relate to more, because they have more in common with them.

TW: Because they're human, yes.

EG: So if Jarrod is the culmination of all the worst traits of a man any woman could meet, how do you sum up Lily?

LH: Well in my experience there are a lot of women in my family, I've seen a lot of women in relationships end being very submissive, and so in a way I was looking at a bit of that. How women in a relationship often love, even when it's not good for them. So there was an aspect of that I guess. There was part of Lily that would drive me crazy, she's very optimistic, she's very strong willed, but I mean when I played her... there was this huge desire when I was playing her to make her stand up straight and say what she was really thinking rather than just always going along.

EG: As Taika mentioned, seeing you in the wig and the way you carried yourself, it wasn't you, it was always Lily he sees interacting with Jarrod. If there are elements of Taika's personality in Jarrod's character, was there ever a moment during filming where you froze for a second and though "Oh God, that is so like him!"?

TW: Probably a lot.

LH: Yup, there were times for sure.

EG: Did that ever make it uncomfortable in any way?

LH: No I don't think so, no. Because obviously I love Taika, I love Jemaine, and I love Jerrod because I think he's got an enormous amount of pathos. But it was just fun, it was a really fun shoot so there wasn't anything uncomfortable about it.

TW: And I think in normal life if you're going to do some comparisons with me and Jerrod, maybe I have... can sometimes be cold and annoying with this concentration problem where if I'm interested in something, I'll focus on it really hard for ages and wind up ignoring just about everyone else. That's probably about as bad as it gets in comparison to me and Jarrod.

LH: That's probably as bad as it gets (laughing).

EG: Talk about The Phoenix Foundation for a moment. I'd never heard of them before. There's something about the image from the teaser poster on the official website with you two in the sleeping bags that strikes me as one of the sweetest images connected to a film that I've seen in some time. There's something in that image that just makes me want to smile...

LH: Oh cool!

EG: And the music from The Phoenix Foundation, the song that's playing over that image on the website?

TW: Blue Summer.

EG: Yes, the music playing over it lends a great deal to that, as it's almost hypnotic in the way it accompanies the image. How did they come to work on this project with you?

TW: Well like most of the people involved, they're friends of ours and I've really liked their music for a very long time. And one of the personal reasons I used them was that I knew someone else would use them in the film eventually. So I thought I better get them quick because they're going to be so big in New Zealand and I think they'll be big overseas as well. So many people have responded to the soundtrack that I think we were lucky to get them when we did. I think a lot of their music was helpful to me during the writing phase because I found a lot of those songs, they're music is very cinematic in their style. Whenever I was writing a particular part or working on a particular scene I would have a song of theirs in my head I'd ask them if I could use it for a particular scene or if they wanted to make new music for the movie. And they just jumped on board straight away.

EG: So it wasn't difficult to get them to go along.

LH: They're good friends, it was easy.

EG: That's one aspect that I've found enlightening about the filmmaking process in covering SXSW this year is what kind of difficulties filmmakers can have in getting the licensing for specific songs for a soundtrack if they're looking for something in particular that was released before the film.

TW: I think it was easier because they were local. I wanted to get another song that was by The Who, and that would have cost me a couple hundred thousand dollars.

EG: Ouch.

TW: Just for that song. So we didn't really go down that path where I got every song that I wanted.

EG: And the soundtrack is going to be released concurrently with the film? Because I can definitely say that their music something I would like to hear more of.

LH: They're really beautiful songwriters, too. As lyricists they're really very good. Smart, lovely guys.

TW: Definitely.

EG: One last loopy question: the party that Jarrod and Lily meet at, the theme is for people to come dressed as their favorite animal. What animal do you most identify with and if you were going to that party, what would you come as?

TW: Loren, why don't we say each other's, maybe?

LH: Ok.

TW: Loren always says baboons. Loren always says baboons, and they're great amazing animals.

LH: Because I read a book about a baboon at it was an amazing book

TW: But when I look at you...

LH: (laughing) You wouldn't think baboon, you'd probably think a sheep.

TW: No, I definitely think baboon. (laughing)

LH: And Taika always says he wants part horse, part bird, part reptile... snake/animal all combined into one.

TW: All the most dangerous parts of animals.

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