When I originally sold X-Men it was because I knew there was 40 years of stories. That was the point! Not only to do the movie and establish the characters, you know, you love the one you're doing. It was because there are all these great stories, what a wealth of drama.

I find myself watching cable and television much more than going to the movies.

There is no one who can move and mime and clown like Bill [Irwin].And Aubrey Plaza, she gets to embody all these different characters. That's what's exciting about this show [X-men], is the unusual casting.

I always feel like every film takes the franchise and hangs it in the balance.

Somehow we allow, if a character goes to the dark side, if we're hooked into that character - I'm obsessed with Peaky Blinders. Those characters are awful, and yet you root for them. You love them! Same with Breaking Bad. That's not as easy in a feature.

The thematic core of X-Men is tolerance. It's that for those of us who are different in any way - in a big way - whether it's you're a minority, you're a woman, you're a Muslim, you are suppressed or marginalized it can go the whole spectrum, but even if you are shy or you feel like an outsider, and X-Men are outsiders.

Matt's [Nix] is much more a part of just the world in terms of there are mutants, mutants are hated and there are Sentinels - though very different from what we've seen before. You feel like you're here in the X-Men world.

I think the time has changed. Because of 9/11, because of the economy, it is more and more now. There is a darker awareness, although it would seem to reason that because life is so much tougher now people would seek entertainment to just totally escape.

What I'm always afraid of is going off-book,I always get upset when the director leaves the classic comic that was so very popular. I argued, and I won't say with who about what, but when we go way away from the original source material... that material is popular for a reason and I like to stick with it.

In the Marvel world, some characters have similar powers. Initially some people might bump up against it, but if they really looked into the X-Men world they would see that characters do share similar powers.

What we always want to say [in X-men] is, It's OK to be yourself, and actually it's a gift to be yourself. Whatever it is that you have, that may be your gift. I think that's what we always want to say, and spread it out, so have tolerance for other people who are different also.

I am really excited that we have Jemaine Clement in the show [X-men], because I freakin' love Flight of the Concords. It was so exciting to work with him.

At a certain point people want to see other movies besides comic book movies so you have to be really careful what you're going to pick, and how many are going to be released within a year.

With Legion, we're our own universe. It gives Noah [Hawley] the freedom to do what he wants to do. Because we play with so many different timelines, and we rebooted and not really rebooted and all that, we felt like, OK, we're going to throw it out there and hope the fans accept it.

I think it's good to tell the fans this movie's going to lead to that, and that will lead to...

The thrill of doing television versus features is in television you get to focus more on the characters.