We had to feel a little bit sorry for director Bryan Singer when we visited the set of X-Men: Days Of Future Past last year. Not only did he have a gigantic summer film to create, but he also had a terrible cough (“Sorry, my allergies are going crazy,” he told us), and he had load of jet-lagged writers gathering round to disrupt his day.

Yet despite his hectic schedule, Bryan Singer was kind enough to take about half an hour to answer our questions about his new X-Men film in a lively group interview. He also spoke about how Days Of Future Past harks back to the ensemble filmmaking of The Usual Suspects, and also his lifelong affection for Star Trek, which led to his brief cameo in Star Trek Nemesis.

Can you tell us how you came to have two casts?

Originally it began with a discussion Matthew Vaughn and I had, where we felt that although fans love seeing new characters, they also love the familiar. So it was a way to make it special, and do a movie that isn’t a sequel or prequel, but what I call an interquel. And Days Of Future Past’s framework was a really great jumping-off point, because it’s such a great book.