Matewa Kiritapu Waititi is a New Zealand child performer best known publicly as the younger daughter of filmmakers Taika Waititi and Chelsea Winstanley. She has also accumulated several screen and voice credits of her own, appearing in Thor: Love and Thunder and Our Flag Means Death and performing in the te reo Māori versions of Coco and Encanto.
The best-supported evidence places her birth on August 21, 2015, making her 10 years old as of August 13, 2026. Her full name is Matewa Kiritapu Waititi, although professional credits frequently shorten it to Matewa Waititi.
Her public record remains modest, which is appropriate for someone still in childhood. The documented work nevertheless shows that her appearances have extended beyond brief family-linked cameos into Māori-language screen projects with a distinct cultural purpose.
Matewa Kiritapu Waititi’s age and family background
Matewa is the younger of the two daughters born to Taika Waititi and Chelsea Winstanley. Her older sister is Te Kāinga o te Hinekāhu Waititi.
Her exact birth date has occasionally been misstated online. Some secondary biography sites give August 11, 2015, but stronger evidence points to August 21, 2015. On August 21, 2021, Taika Waititi publicly wished Matewa a happy birthday and said she was turning six. That contemporary family reference provides substantially better support than later celebrity-biography databases.
A separate August 2026 profile of Waititi also described Matewa as 10 years old, consistent with an August 2015 birth.
Both of her parents have substantial connections to filmmaking. Taika Waititi is a New Zealand filmmaker, actor and writer whose work includes Jojo Rabbit and the Thor films. Chelsea Winstanley is a Māori filmmaker and producer who shared a Best Picture Oscar nomination for Jojo Rabbit. The New Zealand Film Commission has identified Winstanley as the first Indigenous female producer nominated in that Academy Award category.
Matewa has therefore spent part of her childhood around film production. Waititi has spoken publicly about his children spending significant time on his sets, although that background should not be interpreted as evidence that Matewa has decided to pursue acting as a long-term profession.
Her first screen appearances came through Taika Waititi’s productions
Matewa’s first widely documented film appearance was in 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder, directed by her father. She was credited as an Asgardian Kid, with her sister also appearing as one of the children in the film.
The production included children of several people involved with the movie. Children of actors including Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale and Natalie Portman also appeared, while Waititi’s daughters contributed ideas that helped inspire some of the film’s creatures.
For that reason, Matewa’s Thor credit is best understood as a small role arising in a production with a strong family element rather than a conventional Hollywood breakthrough.
Her next documented television appearance came in the second season of Our Flag Means Death, another series associated closely with Waititi. Matewa was credited as Girl #2 in the episode “Calypso’s Birthday,” released in October 2023.
Those two appearances establish that she has genuine screen credits, but the available evidence does not support portraying her as an established professional actress. Her more distinctive work has instead come through te reo Māori dubbing projects.
Te reo Māori work in Coco and Encanto
In 2023, Matewa was part of the cast of * Coco Reo Māori, the Māori-language version of Pixar’s Coco. The production company Matewa Media officially credited her as Baby Coco.
She also received a soundtrack credit on “Mahara Mai (Lullaby)”, alongside New Zealand musician Troy Kingi. That made the project more than another background screen appearance and gave her a documented voice and musical performance credit.
Matewa returned to Māori-language Disney work the following year. In August 2024, Disney announced that she would voice Antonio in Encanto Reo Māori***. Matewa Media independently listed the same casting. The film opened in participating cinemas across Aotearoa in September 2024.
The two projects represent the clearest body of work associated with Matewa so far. Rather than simply appearing in productions connected to her father, she contributed to adaptations created specifically to bring major animated films into te reo Māori.
The cultural context behind her Māori-language credits
Matewa Media, which produced the Māori-language versions of Coco and Encanto, was established to support te reo Māori, Māori culture and Indigenous storytelling on screen.
Its official cast material identifies Matewa with Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi and Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. Those affiliations provide relevant context for her participation in the reo Māori projects, although they should not be used to infer personal beliefs or a public advocacy role that she has never claimed.
Her mother, Chelsea Winstanley, has also built much of her professional career around Māori and Indigenous filmmaking. That family and production environment helps explain why Matewa’s most substantial credits so far include work designed to make globally recognizable films accessible in te reo Māori.
Despite the shared first name, Matewa Media was not named after Matewa Kiritapu Waititi. According to the New Zealand Film Commission, the company takes its name from co-founder Tweedie Waititi’s grandmother, Matewa Delamere.
That distinction matters because the company and the child performer are sometimes easy to conflate when their names appear together in search results.
What is publicly known about Matewa Kiritapu in 2026
As of August 2026, Matewa remains a child with a small but verifiable collection of acting and voice credits. The most recent clearly documented performance located in the public record is her role as Antonio in Encanto Reo Māori in 2024.
There is no strong public evidence that she has since taken on a larger acting career or committed herself to entertainment professionally. Descriptions such as “rising Hollywood star” would therefore go beyond what the record supports.
Her public relevance currently comes from three connected facts: she is the daughter of two prominent New Zealand filmmakers, she has appeared in recognizable film and television productions, and she has participated directly in te reo Māori adaptations of major animated films.
Because she is still a minor, much of her life appropriately remains outside the public record. Details such as her schooling, finances and private day-to-day life are neither necessary nor well supported for a responsible public profile.
Final thoughts
Matewa Kiritapu Waititi is best described as a young performer with a limited but genuine body of public work rather than as a fully established actress. Her appearances in Thor: Love and Thunder and Our Flag Means Death connect her to productions involving her father, while her roles in Coco Reo Māori and Encanto Reo Māori give her a more distinctive place within Māori-language screen projects.
At 10 years old in August 2026, it is too early to assume what direction she will ultimately take. What can be stated with confidence is that she already has several documented credits spanning live-action productions and te reo Māori voice work, while the rest of her future remains appropriately unwritten.
