“Playing out extreme or unusual characters in the straightest of ways is what makes deadpan serious so funny,” said Eagle vs. Shark director Taika Waititi. “It is the antidote to slapstick.” As for the million-dollar question to a comic about what makes funny really flippin’ funny, he says it’s about letting loose and being real.

“It’s about not trying to push the funny,” Waititi said in a Chicago interview with Adam Fendelman. “It’s looking at truth in human situations and having empathy. I especially love the funny that comes out of tragedy. I like situations so uncomfortable that you produce that nervous, cringe kind of laughter.”

Known professionally as Taika Waititi - he's also known as Taika Cohen (he’s Kiwi, not Jewish) - the New Zealand independent film Eagle vs. Shark is the first feature-length film for the young comic star. It was shot for $1.35 million in 25 days using a homegrown crew of 35 close-knit people.

The film, which opened in Chicago on June 22 and heads to the U.K. and New Zealand in August, harmonizes a story that’s wrapped in dead-serious droll with how cool it is to be geeky. Two dominant animals – the eagle and the shark – represent sky and water. In the animal kingdom, they live in worlds that would never meet. Just as both animals are loners, the main characters are also outcasts who bridge a wide divide.

“Though the characters are weird and the situations extreme, everyone can relate because it’s about family dysfunction and the tragedy of day-to-day living,” Waititi said. “Being a human is being a geek.”

Jemaine Clement plays Jarrod and Loren Horsley plays Lily, which is a role she created after wandering the streets of Utah completely in character. Horsley said: “The test worked. I took Lily out for a trial walk and the Red Sea parted. No one wanted to be near her.”

“Creating Lily was a cathartic process,” Horsley said in an interview with Adam Fendelman. “Being a human is strange. Lily was about finding that vulnerable, awkward feeling. Growing up, I was a loner who was raised by hippies in a conservative place. I was weird. I know that feeling very well.”