Scarlett Johansson, Rebel Wilson team up for Nazi satire
The plot centers on a 10-year-old Nazi youth who discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish child in their house.
By AMY SPIROActresses Scarlett Johansson and Rebel Wilson(photo credit: REUTERS)
Movie stars Scarlett Johansson and Rebel Wilson are teaming up for a Nazi Germany satire film.The film, directed and written by Taika Waititi, is titled Jojo Rabbit. The plot centers on a 10-year-old Nazi youth who discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish child in their house.Johansson (Lost in Translation, The Avengers), who is Jewish, signed on to play the mother back in March. Wilson (Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids) announced she was joining the project this week, and will play an instructor at a Nazi children's camp. Actor Sam Rockwell is also signed on to the film, and will portray a Nazi captain.Last year, Johansson appeared on the PBS show Finding Your Roots, and learned that many of her family members were killed in the Warsaw Ghetto or deported to their deaths.Waititi, who was born in New Zealand to a Maori father and a Jewish mother (he has sometimes used the last name Cohen), most recently directed Thor: Ragnarock. The director, producer and actor will also have a role in the film as an imaginary Hitler who appears to the young boy.In an interview with TheWrap in March, Waititi said the character is not based on the actual genocidal dictator, but a child's invention."It’s my version of… a lonely boy’s best version of his hero, which is really his dad,” Waititi said at the time.Production is expected to begin in the next month under Fox Searchlight.
