Bryan Singer

Director of X-Men: Apocalypse

Were there aspects of Apocalypse you thought about using but didn’t?

I considered making him just a giant, but then suddenly every shot is a motion-control shot. It was important to me that we allow Oscar Isaac to connect on a human level.

What made Oscar the right choice?

One, he’s a brilliant actor. Also, he has a multi-ethnicity that one could imagine could rule Sumerian Babylon or South America. And we saw eye to eye on how to explore the history of the character. Oscar wrote some wonderful stuff describing his character, and some of that made it into the script.

Is it often that collaborative?

I give the actors some latitude. Michael Fassbender walked in one day and said, “Can you please not call cut?” After the words were done in the script he kept going with this idea he had, and I was brought to tears. When Michael decided it was over I gave him a huge hug and said, “Thank you for that gift… but I need you to do it again, because I need to move the cameras around!” And he did it flawlessly again. I was like, “Holy shit!”