Taika Waititi Has No Idea What ‘Bridgerton’ Is, but Fans Think He’s Part of the Cast
Taika Waititi has been involved in many popular projects in recent years. His distinctive filmmaking style and point of view have catapulted the director/actor/comedian to such a stature that he’s now one of the trusted shepherds of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars. His schedule must be intense — but not so intense he completely forgot he was on one of the most popular TV shows in recent years. For some reason, enough fans began to wonder if Taika Waititi was part of the Bridgerton cast that he felt compelled to clarify.
Why do people think Taika Waititi is in ‘Bridgerton’?
Taika Waititi appears on an episode of Wired’s “Autocomplete” interviews. At the 5:50-minute mark, he reads the question, “Is Taika Waititi in Bridgerton?” The director has fun with the popular search query in his typical zany way.
“The f*** is that?” he blurts before riffing about the possibility of being on a show he clearly knows nothing about. “I might be in it. I mean, I’m so busy, I don’t know. Obviously, I don’t know any of the names of my characters. I don’t know anything about what I’ve done. I’m probably in Bridgerton. Yes, I’m in Bridgerton. And I loved it. It was great.”
As funny as it would be if it turned out that Taika Waititi was actually in Bridgerton and just forgot about it in the vein of Gwyneth Paltrow not knowing which Marvel movies she’s appeared in, he’s clearly doing a bit.
But that still doesn’t explain why people are Googling if Waititi is on the show. He doesn’t look like any of the characters, and you’d think a witty New Zealander would stick out to fans. Perhaps it’s a bit of wishful thinking from those who know Waititi from his other projects.
The director offers a strange comparison for what the show is like
When Taika Waititi attempts to describe what Bridgerton is about, he quickly loses steam.
“It was that period piece … movie?” he says, looking for information and support from someone off-camera. “Show. TV show. It’s a TV show set in England in the 19, 18, 1700s. And everyone’s good-looking, and it’s sort of like M*A*S*H but in the 1700s.”
For anyone who isn’t familiar, M*A*S*H was a darkly comic film and TV franchise in the 1970s that followed a team of doctors and medical support staff stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. The subtext of the show’s storylines was America’s complicated relationship with the Vietnam War. It doesn’t quite line up with the Regency-era London romance of Bridgerton, but again, Waititi isn’t actually on the show, so it’s not like he has to know these things.
You could forgive him for having other priorities other than binging on another Netflix series. Since 2019, Waititi has directed three feature films (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Next Goal Wins), directed episodes of wildly acclaimed shows (What We Do in the Shadows, The Mandalorian, and Our Flag Means Death), and occasionally acted, most recently lending his voice to Mo Morrison in Lightyear.
‘Bridgerton’ doesn’t need Taika Waititi to be a popular Netflix romance
Taika Waititi is correct in that Bridgerton is indeed a period drama, taking place in the early to mid-1800s. Based on a series of books by Julia Quinn, the story follows the eight siblings of the titular family — Anthony, Daphne, Benedict, Colin, Gregory, Eloise, Francesca, and Hyacinth — as they attempt to find love and acceptance while dealing with the antiquated structure of London high society.
Season 1 focused on the romantic tension between Daphne and Simon (Rege Jean-Page), while the next revolved around the love triangle among Anthony, Kate (Simone Ashley), and her sister Edwina (Charithra Surya Chandran). The way the show depicted that desire for love went a long way to making Bridgerton a viral hit on social media. Their sex scenes were much racier than standard streaming fare and helped draw attention when the show was an unproven commodity.
The second season was more about foreplay, but Bridgerton‘s ratings didn’t suffer for the style change.
Bridgerton Season 3 promises more changes to the method of storytelling. It will skip the third book and go straight to the fourth, which is more about Colin. This season also sees a new showrunner, with Jess Brownell replacing the departing Chris Van Dusen.
