‘Deadpool 2’ Director Explains How The Juggernaut Came to Life

The Juggernaut’s appearance in Deadpool 2 was one of the more challenging on-set elements for director David Leitch to bring to life.

Spoilers for Deadpool 2 follow. Major spoilers!

The gigantic and over-powered X-Men character broke into the film late in its second act, where he would have a bit of a fight with Ryan Reynolds‘ Deadpool before appearing later the film to duke it out with Colossus. As it turns out, the mutant was not only voiced by Wade Wilson actor Ryan Reynolds also but never actually existed on set outside of some stunt men standing in.

“We had somebody in a gray suit, you know, performance capture, but we weren’t recording,” Leitch told ComicBook.com. “It was only for a reference on film. We weren’t recording mo-cap. He’s completely animated and so, we just thought, because his geometry, he’s so tall, getting performance capture onset for his physicality wasn’t effective. If it was going to be an actor where we saw his face, we would probably have done a face rig, but it wasn’t that situation. So, we had different stunt performers at different times play him as reference, but it was never a mo-cap situation.”

For the Essex House throw down, however, there were a pair of stunt performers going at it to make the fight look as realistic as possible, in terms of the characters’ movements.

“I’ll say this though, for the fight scene at the end with Colossus, we did do mo-cap reference, and so we had a smaller stunt performer — maybe like, 5′ 7″ — fighting a guy who’s 6′ 4″, 6′ 5″, and tried to get more proportions right,” Leitch said. “And we did the fight scene in mo-cap and put cameras on it. And it was still just a reference for the animators, it was really some great animation done by Framestore that pulled us over the finish line.”

In a rare moment for current cinema, the Juggernaut’s appearance was withheld from marketing despite being a fan-favorite character who might have sold some more tickets.

“Deadpool gets to do all the fun marketing things that no one else gets to do, and we were trying to be provocative with the marketing,” Leitch said. “We were trying to be shocking. [Ryan Reynold is] sort of the keeper of the brand and he has a lot to say with that. And he was really passionate about keeping Juggernaut a secret, just like he is in the script. It’s like, if you knew he was in it, then you would subvert that moment in the prison where Russell and Wade are talking about the monster in the basement, and you kind of subvert that moment for the audience and it’s not as entertaining.”

In the end, Leitch enjoyed having a few surprises for moviegoers. “So, we did try to preserve several reveals,” Leitch said. “And I think, marketing, hats off to them for helping us do that.”

Deadpool 2 is now playing in theaters.