David Leitch

As a second unit director, you're entrusted to shoot the action sequences. On every movie, it's slightly different.

The thing that I like about action sequences is that if they're done well, you get to know more about the character in those few minutes than you do through 10 minutes of exposition.

There are a lot of big action movies that we've worked on where the attitude has been, 'Let's just get through this scene.' Then you get those jumpy, what-were-they-thinking action sequences.

I think, as a choreographer and an action designer, you're constantly giving your characters problems to overcome. That's what makes it fun for choreography. But it also makes it fun for the audience to see them solve those puzzles and how they are as a human being.

There's an arc to an action sequence, and you need to come out the other end knowing your character better, and maybe the story has moved forward in a compelling way.

I look at the action scenes as placeholders when I arrive on a script, knowing that I'm going to expand on them when I understand the constraints of the movie, the locations of where we're shooting, the abilities of the actors, and where we want to go with the characters.

Coming from an action background, I always approach the action sequences in any script as kind of placeholders.

While filming 'The Matrix,' we studied how a Chinese fight-choreography team trains actors before production starts so that they can participate in action sequences in a more dynamic way.

You learn tricks to make action look more dynamic - having the fight come toward you or shooting on a longer lens to compress the speed.

As a director, just to be able to jump in to do something that's different, and to explore comedy and be challenged by that, is great. Some directors never get that opportunity.

All film, at the end of the day, has wish-fulfillment.

The DNA of 'Deadpool' shouldn't change.