English: ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ Director on Crafting Action and Designing Fondue-Based Fight Scenes on Vimeo

Hate it or love it, Hollywood needs more movies like The Spy Who Dumped Me, a big, badass original story that's obviously funny—what else do you expect, with leads like Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon?—but isn't afraid to go balls-to-the-wall with a few Mission-esque set-pieces. It's a marvelous non-Marvel action movie made even more impressive by the fact director Susanna Fogel—who also wrote the script along with David Iserson—cut her teeth on low-budgets like Life Partners and episodes of the Freeform series she created, Chasing Life. I recently sat down with the director to get a sense of how one mixes indie sensibilities with a globe-hopping spy caper.

In the following interview with the filmmaker, we discussed the role of original stories in a franchise-fueled landscape, turning an action-heavy script into reality, writing vs. directing, and finding the heart of a big-budget film. Watch the player above for the full interview. Below is a list of everything we discussed: