David Leitch

“In the stunt world, fights and vehicles are often two different disciplines.”

“You always start a fight scene or an action scene with, 'What are we learning about this character at the moment, and how are we gonna arc him or her in the next three minutes,' and it's no different with 'Deadpool' or 'Atomic Blonde' or 'John Wick.'”

“Even when you're being safe, eight hours of choreography makes you look like you've been through a war. It's hard. It's like playing hockey for eight hours.”

“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.”

“If you have John Goodman in your movie, you want to use him as much as possible.”

“You can sometimes break rules in comics that you can't necessarily break in cinema. It's fun to find something cool in a comic and then try and find a way to break the same rule in another medium.”

“You have to make bold choices to be noticed.”

“Every movie you attack has its challenges, and I was excited about the challenges presented by 'Deadpool.' I was a huge fan of the original, and I think, as a director, you have to put the script first.”

“Great actors can transform, but sometimes there's just this person who speaks right to the role. When they walk in the room, you know they're that character. That is something you can't teach an actor; that's something that's luck and chance.”

“I think in the 'Deadpool' franchise, the writers are really good at distilling the good stuff and applying that to the material in this universe.”

“I've been doing second unit for years, which is sort of like directing mini movies. Now that I'm directing entire films, it's really just more of everything. There are a lot more questions that need answers.”

“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.”

“There's a lot of directing within the stunt coordinator's job.”

“The completely irreverent tone was the thing that won me over about the first 'Deadpool' movie.”

“Friends who are directors like Jim Mangold or the Wachowskis or Zack Snyder - who, whether they know or not - have really left a mark on who I am as a director.”

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

“Film is a collaborative art form. I don't know why you wouldn't recognize the stunt performers.”

“The character of Cable is complex.”

“Choreographing a fight scene is telling a little story. You learn a lot about the characters involved.”

“As a stunt guy, you become a mini-director. You're talking to actors about performance.”