New Zealand actor Julian Dennison is not your average 15-year-old, if the confidence and exuberance with which he throws himself into his first GQ shoot is anything to go by. At one point, he crosses his arms over his chest in the style of the X-Force gesture (and, as he points out, both the Wonder Woman and the Black Panther gesture as well). “Wakanda forever!” he shouts into the camera, shortly before his mom (“mum”) steps up to adjust his ear stud.

Dennison’s been acting since he was even younger, his breakout role being in the amazing 2016 Taika Waititi movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople, in which he plays the runaway orphan Ricky Baker. Now he’s starring in Deadpool 2, opposite the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, and Zazie Beetz. Dennison spoke with GQ about the pressures of acting at such a young age, how he separates his work life from his family life, and what he really thinks of Reynolds’s first foray into superhero movies, the 2011 disaster Green Lantern.

GQ: Let’s go all the way back: New Zealand. How'd you get into acting? How do you get into that first movie?

Julian Dennison: My family's been in the industry. I have a lot of family. My mum was an actor. A few of my aunties and uncles. My grandfather was actually a writer. Anyway, I was at school one day and they were holding open auditions for a film called Shopping. We got a callback and they're like, "We have one more young man going for the role called Christian." At the time, they didn't know Christian was my twin brother. Could've been me sitting right here, could've been him.

But I ended up getting the part, and then we did Paper Planes as well, an Australian film I did with Rob Connolly, and then I did a Don't Do Drugs and Drive ad.

And that's how you met Taika Waititi.

Yeah, that's how I met Taika. He said to me that he wanted to work with me again, he just didn't have the project at the time. I didn't really have to audition for Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Taika just was like, "Yeah, you have this part." We did that, and that was my breakout film. That's when I went to Sundance, and then we spent two weeks out here [in America] and met with studios and casting agencies and stuff. Just to make contacts.

At the Fox meeting, they said, "Oh yeah, let's talk about Deadpool 2." I hadn't seen the first one yet, because it's rated R in New Zealand and my mum was like, "Yeah, it's Deadpool, mate, you're not watching it anytime soon." I only saw it a few weeks ago. They cut the sex montage out for me. I don't really want to watch it as well. People have weird minds.

Ryan Reynolds clearly has a specific vision for these films.

Ryan Reynolds is an artistic man. It was really cool. We met with David Leitch and he's like, "You'll get to meet Ryan." Yeah, right. I'm like, "He'd be too busy." He came out and we're like, "Yooooooo!" But we weren't like that at the time. We're like, "Yeah, cool. Yeah, nice to meet you, man." He was wearing a green Christmas sweater. It wasn't Christmas. Super subtle. Just a little bit of Christmas trees.

Then we came back the next day and we read a bit of the script and did a chemistry read. And I got the part.