The financial crisis of the late 2000’s is examined in the new movie The Big Short, a star-studded satire that aims to shine a light on how big banks fleeced the American public through greed and manipulation. It’s based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis and much like his previous works adapted to the screen (Moneyball and The Blind Side) its incendiary story is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

The movie is anchored by an all-star Hollywood cast but centers on four financial players who enter the story at different angles. As played by Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, each character sees the financial crisis coming in a unique way and their reaction to it is what sets the movie in motion.

Behind the scenes, the man responsible for wrangling the story and talent together is director Adam McKay. He’s primarily known for working on broad studio comedies like Anchorman and Step Brothers but his visual style here shows an untapped side that he is more than willing to explore. McKay recently traveled to San Francisco to promote The Big Short and we talked about his transition to making a different type of movie, as well as his experience working with Marvel Studios to salvage Ant-Man last year after a last-minute change in the director’s chair. The following is a transcription of that conversation.

Q: There are a lot of dense business terms in this movie that are meant to entertain and educate, how did you make it manageable for an audience to understand things while staying true to Michael Lewis’ original text?

Adam McKay: I think what we did with the meta breaking the fourth wall is inspired my Michael Lewis’ book. He’ll do things in the book like, “if you’re still keeping up with what I’m saying you deserve a gold star.” He talks to the reader, so that inspired us to do it in the movie. One of the ways banks rip us off is by confusing us or making us feel stupid with a lot of financial talk so I really wanted to open it up in a fun way. The truth is once you get it it’s a very entertaining world, it’s the language of power. The only people who have been bitching about it have been super stodgy film formalists.

Q: Was it a tough balancing act to maintain comedy and drama in the same movie?

McKay: I think any time you’re learning the truth about something gigantic I would much rather know than not know. When you don’t know it sucks, you feel powerless and confused. I think any time you start understanding a language or something new there’s an excitement to it even if it’s bad news. I thought the book had that original excitement. That’s how you get these multiple genres coexisting in the same movie, kind of how life works as well.

Q: You have a theatre background and in theatre it’s common to break the fourth wall, but in film not so much. Why do you think filmmakers are reluctant to do so?

McKay: There’s definitely a snobbery about it that I’ve noticed, it’s a film school thing. In film school they each you show don’t tell but some of my favorite movies of all time involve breaking the fourth wall or using narrators. Scorsese’s done it a bunch with Goodfellas and Casino, so I think it’s just changing. I’m less precious about it.

Q: Your film is headlined by four A-list actors. Did you have to use different techniques on set to get through to each of them or did they all take your direction easily?

McKay: You have to dial into each actor and what they need. In the case of Christian Bale, he comes to set and he is the character. Steve Carell is very different, he hunts down the moment like a pack of dogs. When he doesn’t find it he gets very pissed at himself. When I do comedies with him it’s not like that but on this movie I realized I had to be his hunt master. Ryan Gosling has a very weird role because he’s inside the movie and outside of it too, talking to the camera. The way he and I would talk is more of a writer-director, the way Will Ferrell and I would talk. And Brad Pitt just came in with this fully-formed character. He had the hair, the beard, the look, he knew exactly who this character was.

Q: We were talking about film snobbery earlier, coming from the world of blockbuster comedies how easy or difficult was it to pitch yourself to the studio to get this directing job?

McKay: You’re 100% right, I’ve tried to make Garth Ennis’ The Boys and I couldn’t get anyone to make it. I did this amazing pre-visualization and had a great take on it and that was a case where when I was pitching it I could feel the studio heads thinking, “he’s a comedy guy.” It was a tricky and ambitious project but it didn’t help that I was a comedy guy. In this case I got very lucky because the company I went to already had the book.

Q: Brad Pitt’s company Plan B?

McKay: Yes. I give all the credit in the world to Plan B for being open to talking to me about it.

Q: And I’m sure it definitely helps to have the film’s producer on set as one of your stars.

McKay: Yes, definitely.

Q: What’s it like not working with Will Ferrell?

McKay: Well, I can say life is 20% less enjoyable. He’s the greatest and I miss him, but I think it’s good we did something separate. At one point I talked to him about doing a cameo and he said, “McKay, go do one without me.” Every movie set is slightly less sad with Will Ferrell in it.

Q: Wrapping up, can you talk about Ant-Man and how the pressure cooker process of putting things together at the last minute with Paul Rudd came to be?

McKay: I have to tell you, it didn’t feel like a pressure cooker, it felt like I was in heaven. I grew up on Marvel comics and met with Kevin Feige, and could tell right away this guy gets it. Sometimes you meet these executives and they kind of get it and the bummer of that is you write something really cool and they don’t get it. It was so much fun knowing that if we wrote something cool, Feige was going to be excited by it. We had the best time, it was just Paul Rudd and I holed up in a hotel writing big action sequences. Everyone assumed I was just doing the comedy and no, we rewrote huge parts of that movie. The whole Falcon fight we got to write and it was so much fun. I told Feige anytime you need me give me a call because that was a blast. He asked if there was anything I wanted and I said an autographed Ant-Man poster from Stan Lee. Four days ago I got it and it’s a holy relic in my house. I tell you, the reason Marvel keeps doing it well is because they know what they’re doing.

Q: Are you returning to write the sequel?

McKay: I told them I would if they want me, I’m right here. It may just be another rewrite situation since I’ve got other stuff I’m working on.

The Big Short is now playing in limited release and expands nationwide December 23.