A weary, burnt-out superhero finds one more reason to fight on in Director James Mangold’s new action-drama, Logan.

In the follow-up to his 2013 feature The Wolverine, Mangold takes us into the future where the former X-Man Logan, his ailing friend Charles Xavier — the psychic mutant known as “Professor X” — and the mutant Caliban are living out their post-heroic days in a self-imposed exile on the Mexican border. Aging and racked with pain from his past battles, Logan would like nothing better than to be left alone. But when a young mutant arrives being pursued by a villain from his own past, the Wolverine must once again claw a path to justice.

Following the March 5 DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Mangold sat down with Director Gavin O’Connor (Jane Got a Gun) to discuss the making of Logan and his interest in imbuing fantasy settings with an aura of grim reality.

In addition to Logan and its lead-in feature The Wolverine, Mangold’s credits also include the feature films Knight and Day, 3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line, Kate & Leopold, Cop Land and Girl, Interrupted; and the pilots for the series Vegas and Men in Trees. Mangold won a Special Jury Recognition and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for his 1995 feature Heavy at the Sundance Film Festival. He has been a DGA member since 1985.

You can listen to Mangold's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find all DGA podcast episodes here.