*This interview contains spoilers for Creed 2* 

Creed 2 plays like the dark, emotional reboot of 1985’s Rocky IV, a description that doesn’t quite do justice to just how well this film works. The sequel to Creed—with director Steven Caple Jr. stepping in for Ryan Coogler—sees Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) feeling the pressure of the light heavyweight championship around his shoulder, the same belt his father once defended. With his fiance Bianca’s (Tessa Thompson) star on the rise as well, Adonis’ life is upended when the man who killed Apollo Creed, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), arrives in Philadelphia to announce the latest challenger for the belt: His son, Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu). Against the advice of his trainer Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), Adonis takes the fight, and what follows is basically a Shakespearian tragedy told through stiff jabs and workout montages.

Before Creed 2‘s November 21 premiere, Collider hopped on the phone with director Steven Caple Jr. In this 1-on-1 interview, we discussed designing the film's elaborate fight entrances, filming workout montages in the New Mexico desert, the film's ending, Sylvester Stallone's emotional last day on set, and more.

Collider: The film is built around two fights against Viktor Drago, which means there are two entrances for Adonis. How did you want to frame each entrance to showcase where Adonis is at that point in the story? 

STEVEN CAPLE JR: I think for me, when you look at the entire franchise I didn't realize how big the entrances were so I went back and looked at the Rocky movies for research. They're huge. They do tell a story. With this one, he'd been in a fight before so in the first fight he's the champion. He would glam it up a bit but not to the point where he was Apollo Creed. You wanted just a hint of that just for nostalgia. Just to tap into the history of who his dad was. But ultimately it was a tactic he used to showcase that this is his house. It's something that boxers often use. Roy Jones is a big proponent of using that. It's a technique to get into Drago's head.

Then after that we went into the Russia fight, and with the Russia fight we wanted to show that in the first fight he was doing it for the right reasons. He didn't necessarily have the full support of his family. In the second fight, it was war. He had to switch up his styles, he had to change his mentality. So Bianca's character had written a song that expressed that, I thought it would be nice to see them come out together. A lot of fighters today come out with like a musical artist. We felt like it if he was going to walk out with an artist it made sense storywise to have his fiance take him out to the ring. To lead the way, lead the charge. Now they're a team and they're going into this together, which they didn't do the first time.

What were the conversations like about when exactly to bring in the classic theme? Because it's almost a moment you have to earn. 

CAPLE JR: Yeah, we talked about it even earlier on when we first turned in the draft, like where was it? You're right, you don't want it to come in too early, but you also don't want it to come in too late. It felt like his first comeback moment after he yells "Creed, Creed" and knows what he's fighting for and had motivation. That's when we played the Creed theme. So there's a Creed theme when the ref says "What's your name?" and he says "Creed." Right there, we were battling that because at a certain point we wanted to have the Rocky theme, but it made sense to actually have the Creed theme. Right after he does the first knockdown which is like the ultimate underdog story, the ultimate achievement, we felt like that was the moment where we can now play the Rocky theme. Then we played it throughout, I think we played it throughout that round, got a little deep into the Rocky theme song. And then at the end, we played a little bit of the Rocky-Adrian theme when Bianca is out, he has his own subtle Adrian-esque moment when he runs to Bianca and they have their thing between the ropes. So yeah, we definitely wanted to pay homage to it but it's tough trying to figure that right moment.

There's a massive, intense training montage out in the desert. First of all, where were you for that, and what were the logistics of getting that shot? 

CAPLE JR: We actually shot in New Mexico. We wanted to portray Death Valley in California but logistically we couldn't shoot there. Production-wise, it was easier to get to New Mexico. We built that whole area. Everything from the small windmill you see...actually that was there but it was a water tower. But we built the ring. We wanted to go somewhere that was deserted. We called it "Hell" so Adonis could sort of rise from the ashes. It felt like that kind of place, gave us that kind of identity, that feeling. The dry heat. Beautiful skies. And of course the intense workouts.

What we did was, we had one of the scouts check out New Mexico doing prep, then we started to build the world. Virtually, at first. Then when we went out there we had about one day to prep, so me and Mike and Sly went through the desert, tried to point out spots where we would like to complete the sequence. We only had a couple days to do it. It was definitely a sprint as soon as we landed. Each workout, you don't want to wear out Mike. We really had to time the day right, we had to stop for desert storms. The sun was beating on us so we had to take multiple breaks. The car sequence was a trip. Trying to run with the Mustang, trying to time it out with driving and running. There were some difficult challenges with it, but ultimately we knew we had to get it done and everyone was really supportive of each other. It was a team-building exercise [laughs].

Could you talk a little about working with Florian, who not only isn't coming from an acting background but you have to deal with him throwing punches at Michael B. Jordan? 

CAPLE JR: Yeah, yeah, you said it, he's just very intimidating. We had that portion. When it comes to acting, in my experience working with non-actors, you don't want to get too much into the method of acting. Or the technical stuff. As you would with Mike, who has been doing it for years. He just knows acting in and out. With someone like Florian you have to cater to him and pull from real life experiences. Make sure he's in a real place. Because once he tries to perform or act he's going to pull out and everyone is going to realize he's trying to act. And yes, he has a few emotional scenes, and he didn't know Russian so he had to learn Russian. He learned Russian to try and understand what he's saying at what moment and had the right cadence and tone with the line because in Russian he doesn't know what he's saying. That was between him and Dolph. I spent a lot of time with him. We had journals that we shared back and forth. Everytime on set we'd just go to a real place and change the whole scenario, change the whole scene in front of us so so mentally it means something else although visually we're in the Ukraine. In his mind he's in a much more personal experience that he actually had to deal with. It helps the scene stay alive.

Dolph was a whole other element to it. His chemistry with Dolph helped a lot. They spent a lot of time together. Training and working out together and everything.

The final fight echoes Rocky IV with Ivan Drago throwing in the towel for his son. Was that always the ending of the film or is that something that came about during the process?

CAPLE JR: Actually, Sly had written a first draft and [Drago] was knocked out. In the original version he was knocked out. For me, when I got to the ending, we had seen that before. Everyone knows he's gonna fight him twice and they're expecting a knockout. I just remember when I had the moment I was driving in the car. My wife was driving and I was in the passenger seat and I don't know why but I was in a deep thought. I called my writer [Juel Taylor] and was like "Yo, we need to throw in the towel." All these years, it's the last thing people will expect him to do. Because he's such a mean dad. He's a pageant dad. If we can flip the script and do something that's always talked about in every Rocky movie. Like every Rocky movie someone talks about, "Should I quit? Should I throw in the towel?" Even in Creed when his eye was swollen and he was like, "Please don't stop it." But no one's ever thrown in the towel. So it was something that happened during the process, maybe a week or so before we even came to Philly.

Is there a moment from set that will stick with you for the rest of your life? 

CAPLE JR: A few. One moment, on the very first day, we shot our fight sequences, we have Rocky and Mike come out. You're shooting with the crowd there so the fight will feel alive, so you got like one to two thousand people there. They're all seated, and with no introduction, they start walking to the set in the zone ready to work. People start standing up and cheering, chanting "Rocky" and chanting "Creed", and these two dudes are just taking it in inside the ring before we even start. We had to wait for this crowd to settle down. That was a moment. It was like "Wow, they've made such an impact on the people and the culture and us." You realize we're doing something big, but also something that resonates with people.

Then the last moment, the very last day, the last shoot, it was this inspired torch moment, where Adonis is shadow boxing by the fire. That was Sly's last scene that we ever shot. So afterward when we finished shooting it, we called "cut" and Sly, just on his own, started talking and it turned into a speech. Everyone gathered around. It was the desert, at night, flames were going. He just kept talking about how the franchise was important to him and passing the torch to Mike. It was emotional for everyone. Like I said the actual torch flame was happening behind him. It was real quiet, the last day of production, the last hour or so. So everyone got really emotional. Beyond the project, it's the people you're working with. A reminder of why we do things and why we sacrifice our time to create and hopefully impact the world.