I'm friends with [David] Fincher. [James] Cameron gives me advice. I know a fair amount of directors who have been through it, and they all felt pretty confident that I would be fine when I got my shot. So their confidence made me feel confident.

I think people moving through space and the way they say lines, it's a puzzle to be solved every time. But there's a right way to do it that feels natural. And it's just kind of finding that right thing.

I think actors, they maybe want more approval than I'm used to giving. Everybody does. Everybody needs a hug you know, all the time. I'm not very good at that. I could get better at that.

I got into comics on John Byrne's run of the X-Men and the Dark Phoenix Saga. I got in around X-Men 95, right when it turned to the new X-Men. So that whole family, all those characters are kind of my favorite characters, just the X-Men world.

Compassion is the intention to see each human being as no better or worse than yourself, neither more nor less important, and as fundamentally similar to yourself.

I think if you do what I want to do creatively, it will also make money for you.

Once you get cocky that's when you start to, A, turn into an asshole to everybody and, B, make mistakes because you stop listening to people or they stop telling you because you're a cocky asshole. So I'm going to try and eat my humble pie every morning for breakfast and just hope that it turns out OK.

I don't want to make a movie for 100,000 fans that nobody else in the world sees, because I don't think that's good for the character.

I function better in an atmosphere of inner insecurity and fear.

As a first time director it's interesting, but not all that different from what I did before. A lot of parts of this job seem to be very similar to running a big company.

You'd think I'd be more comfortable with the action, but actually I'm more comfortable with the drama. I mean you get more instant feedback on what you are seeing and you know if it's working or it's not working.

I'm definitely not afraid to be wrong.

I buy my Avengers tickets. But I think people are going to really get into seeing this other side of the world.

I mean Dark Phoenix series, the way it was done, they didn't do it justice in the past movies, in my personal opinion. I just like the X-Men universe.

There's the larger shiny Marvel universe where everybody has new gear and it's all made of chrome and leather. And then there's Deadpool. I think the world that he explores is a much seedier, everyday sort of ordinary type world. But he still lives in that universe. It still has to sit next to all these other films.

Attention is the intention to live without reservation in the here-and-now.

There's a little burst of creativity being director followed by lots and lots of meetings and talking to people and more meetings. It's scary. And I can't believe anybody actually lets me do it. But it's going well so far.