Taika Waititi: Directing Rita Ora in new music video was ‘a dream thing to do’

Exclusive: Oscar-winning director calls working with the pop star, whom he married in 2022, ‘the easiest job in the world’

Taika Waititi has said it was a “dream” to direct the music video for Rita Ora’s new single “All Natural”.

The pop star returned with the sultry new track on Wednesday (24 September), describing it as being about “learning to love every side of yourself – the strong and the fragile, the light and the shadows”.

She added: “This song is really about growth, healing and self-discovery. My hope is that when people hear it, they connect with their own journey and feel seen in it.”

Steered by Waititi, who married Ora in 2022, the video follows Ora as she dances beneath huge overhead lights around an industrial space resembling an abandoned club.

Speaking to The Independent, the Oscar-winning filmmaker called working with Ora “the easiest job in the world”.

“I’m not even sure I could call it work,” he joked. “It’s literally pointing a camera at your best friend who happens to be criminally gorgeous and effortlessly talented.

Rita Ora and Taika Waititi at the 2024 Met Gala (Getty)

“I mean, I wasn’t even operating the camera, I just told the guy where to point it. And all the while we got to listen to this absolute gem of a song. It’s actually a dream thing to do.”

The track was produced by Grammy-winning New Zealand producer, musician and songwriter Joel Little (Taylor Swift, Lorde, Gracie Abrams).

Rita Ora in the Taika Waititi-directed music video for ‘All Natural’ (Press)

Ora has also been busy creating a micro-documentary series with British filmmaker Stella Scott, in which she reflects on her Kosovan heritage and growing up in west London. The first two episodes were released to her Instagram page last week.

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Meanwhile, her most recent album, You & I, was released in 2023 and debuted in the top 10 on the UK albums chart.

“All Natural” opens a “new chapter”, according to a press release for the single: “One that feels sharper, stronger, and truer to herself than ever before.”

As well as new music, Ora and Waititi are working on a musical based on the notorious Fyre Festival, a project Waititi described to The Hollywood Reporter as “exciting, weird and potentially disastrous”.

Intended to be a luxury music festival held on a Caribbean island in 2017, Fyre Festival ended in disaster due to poor organisation from its co-founders.

Guests who had paid tens of thousands for tickets and accommodation were stranded with damp mattresses and disaster relief tents to sleep in, and cheese sandwiches served in styrofoam containers.

“I can’t wait to get started and snatch me some of that sweet American theatre money,” Waititi said.

‘All Natural’, the new single from Rita Ora, is out now.