Season two of Daredevil debuted on Netflix on Friday, March 18th. The following article includes spoilers from all episodes of the new season.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Sure, your favorite parts of Daredevil might be the explosive and elaborate fight scenes, but there’s one guy who’s got you beat in terms of “fanboying out” over those brutally awesome action sequences. Philip Silvera is the man responsible for imagining, planning, and bringing all those memorable showdowns to life. The long-time stuntman and fight coordinator (and comic book fan) describes the show as “definitely a dream job.” He joked with us, “Oh, I’m like a kid in a candy story. I’m totally geeking out!”

Silvera is known for his “grounded” and “practical” approach, something he sees fits squarely in line with the kind of hero Marvel wants Daredevil to be. “I think Daredevil is a very practical character. He’s a guy with a lot of determination, will, and drive. He just learned these things. He wasn’t born with money or superpowers. He’s someone who can do things for real,” said Silvera.

Fans will recall that even though season one of Daredevil was chock full of glorious and gritty fight scenes, one sequence in particular stuck in everyone’s memory: “the hallway scene.” To up the ante on that inventive action scene, Silvera and his team worked on a breath-taking sequence that takes place in a stairwell in Episode 3. The daring fight was presented in one continuous shot that amplified the danger and made it feel like Matt Murdock had finally ascended to superhero status (even as he was kicking and flipping his way down the stairs). As it turns out, Silvera didn’t just choreograph it; He directed and shot the whole sequence. As in, he was the guy holding the camera.

“This year I’m also the second unit director, so I actually do a lot of filming of the action sequences, from the car work to the motorcycle work to the fight scenes,” he told us. “Good choreography, as much as it has to tell a story, it also has to be a dance with the camera.”

“When we do a sequence, I have to concept design the sequence. And I review it with, say, the Assistant Fight Coordinator. Then we bring in the [stunt] doubles and then we bring in the other stunt performers. What we do is a ‘previs,’ which is almost like shooting the entire scene before we even film it. Sometimes we’re doing that five, six, seven days a week, over six months.” Silvera added, “The previses are very important because that becomes our shooting template.”

Silvera was also the guy responsible for designing the fights in this winter’s explosive R-rated superhero romp Deadpool. That film went out of its way to push the envelope in terms of what was allowed onscreen, all while mocking the tired tropes of the genre. As with anything, even fight scenes have their gimmicks and clichés – and Silvera is keenly aware of them. When I griped to him that I was tired of seeing female action stars do “the Black Widow” (i.e. a ubiquitous move wherein a lithe starlet seemingly climbs up a male opponent and twists him to the ground by wrapping her thigh around his throat), Silvera boasted, “Just so you know, I think we do a move that kind of puts the Black Widow move to bed in this show this season. I feel like it’s one of the most overused moves for females. There’s something that for me, even I’ve grown tired of seeing that as an action designer.”

Silvera spilled that in the past he’s worked with actors who couldn’t keep up with the demands of stunt training, but that the cast of Daredevil was stellar. Both Charlie Cox and Jon Bernthal worked intently with their doubles to master the physicality of Daredevil and Punisher, while Elodie Yung leaned on her already impressive martial arts background. Silvera worked with all three to develop styles that informed much about the character’s backgrounds and personalities.

“Someone I have to give much respect to, and who works non-stop, and very hard on all these fight scenes is Scott Glenn,” Silvera told us. The 75-year-old Glenn returns to Daredevil season two as Stick, Daredevil and Elektra’s trainer and mentor. “He’s a gentleman in every sense of the word and he’s also a martial artist. When he approaches something, he approaches it with the technique of the character and the real world technique to the martial arts he knows. ”

The show features nasty up close brawls, bloody samurai battles, ninjas clambering up roof tops, long range shoot outs, and a pint-sized girl beating the bejesus out of a boy twice her size, but was there anything that Silvera pitched that went too far for the Marvel executives? Was there a fight scene deemed too expensive, too crazy, or too unrealistic? Silvera told us there was one that “took a little bit of selling in the beginning.”

“It’s the classic and iconic Daredevil moment when he’s diving down the side of a building,” he said. “Obviously you want to do these things and you want to make sure they look practical and not too over-the-top ‘comic-book-y.’ Pitching that, showing that the right way to make it look a little more realistic was a little tricky in the beginning.”

When we spoke to Marvel chief Joe Quesada on the Daredevil red carpet, he told us that “all roads lead to Defenders.” That show will finally unite Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist on one team — which begs the question: How are those four wildly different brawlers going to fight together? Are their fight coordinators also going to team up to choreograph the team up?

Silvera laughed. “I honestly don’t know. That’s too far ahead! I’m very excited to see how they bring those worlds together because they’re so different, yet all in the same world. I’d love to see how a Luke Cage fight might go with Daredevil, whether they’re working side-by-side [or not]. I’d love to see someone like Jessica Jones team up with Iron Fist. And obviously, the classic Luke Cage/Iron Fist team up, which we’ve known about in comics for years. So I’m just excited to see those. I wish whoever does it, the best of luck.”

[Watch Daredevil on Netflix]

[Gifs by Jaclyn Kessel, copyright Marvel/Netflix]