After two trailers, one thing about Thor: Ragnarok that everyone seems to agree on is how much fun it looks. Which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: director Taika Waititi is a master of all types of comedy, having made a name for himself with movies like vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows and last year’s terrific Hunt for the Wilderpeople. As it turns out, working on the Ragnarok set sounds like it was even more fun than the movie looks.

MTV caught up with Waititi at Comic Con this weekend and asked about the process behind making a movie like this, for a director who hasn’t worked on a huge franchise tentpole like this before. Surprisingly, Waititi’s set sounds super laid-back.

I would say we improvised probably 80 percent of the film, or ad-libbed, or just threw in stuff. My style of working is I’ll often be behind the camera, or right next to the camera yelling words at people, like, ‘Say this, say this! Say it this way!’ I'll straight-up give Anthony Hopkins a line reading. I don’t care.

It’s about time a Marvel movie took stock of its actors’ comedy shops. Chris Hemsworth’s Thor has often acted as the comic relief in the past few Avengers movies (presumably after an exec at Marvel Studios figured out “ANOTHER!” was the best part of the first Thor), and Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Jeff Goldblum, and even Anthony Hopkins and Cate Blanchett are all hilarious people. Ragnarok, despite the apocalyptic title, sounds like just the jolt of comic energy the MCU needs.

Thor: Ragnarok hits theaters November 3.

More From ScreenCrush