Donald Trump Had ‘List of Demands’ on Set of 2012 NBC Ad, Says Taika Waititi: The ‘Camera Had to Be a Certain Height to Make Him Look a Little Thinner’

Zack Sharf
·2 min read
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Taika Waititi revealed on the “SmartLess” podcast (via Business Insider) that Donald Trump had a list of demands when the two collaborated on a 2012 advertisement for NBC. The commercial, titled “Brotherhood of Man,” aired during the Super Bowl and touted the network’s television slate by combining characters from series such as “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Saturday Night Live” and more. Waititi directed the ad, which also featured Donald Trump as he was the face of NBC’s reality competition series “The Apprentice” at the time.

“I directed Trumpy,” Waititi told the podcast hosts. “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.”

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Waititi then cracked a joke: “I think it had whatever the Pantone for orange was that he had to appear as on screen.”

The director added on a more serious note, “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.'”

“The Apprentice,” which Trump hosted and was an executive producer on, ran on NBC from 2004 to 2017. Waititi shot the advertisement in 2011, years before he’d make a splash in Hollywood as the director of “Thor: Ragnarok.” At the time, the future Oscar winner was coming off his New Zealand hits “Eagle vs. Shark” and “Boy.” His profile would be raised significantly by “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” both of which were released after the NBC Super Bowl commercial. These projects would get him on the radar of Marvel, who hired him for “Thor: Raganarok.” Waititi said on the “SmartLess” podcast that he agreed to direct the “Thor” sequel for the money.

“You know what? I had no interest in doing one of those films,” Waititi 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,” he 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 would go on to direct two “Thor” movies for Marvel: 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok,” which is widely considered one of the best Marvel movies, and 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder,” which is one of the franchise’s most polarizing.

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