During a meeting for 'Shang-Chi,' director Destin Daniel Cretton took a risk and mentioned how he told his agent: 'Don't ever let me do a Marvel movie.' He decided to be himself even though it could have cost him the job.

• The director Destin Daniel Cretton told his agent to never let him work on a Marvel movie.
• Then he learned Marvel was searching for a director for "Shang-Chi."
• Cretton was honest and shared that with Marvel, knowing it could hurt his chance at directing.

The "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" director Destin Daniel Cretton had a big decision to make when he met with Marvel Studios about working on the now record-breaking hit.

Should he just be himself or be the person he thought Marvel wanted him to be during their meeting? He decided to just be himself, even if it meant it may cost him working on the studio's first film to feature a prominently Asian cast and superhero.

"I did have a giant personal fear of stepping into a movie like this," Cretton told press, including Insider, in August during a virtual press conference for "Shang-Chi."

"When I pitched to Kevin ... I just told myself, I'm just going to be myself. I have a tendency to be pressured to not be myself," Cretton said, referring to Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios.

"I'm just going to be myself in this pitch and walk out feeling good that I did that," he said he decided.

There was one moment during their conversation where he reached a crossroads about how to respond to a particular question.

"They asked me, 'Have you always wanted to do a big Marvel movie?'" Cretton said, adding that he was unsure in the moment if he should be upfront and honest.

He decided to take a risk and do just that.

"The truth was it was a few weeks before they announced that they were looking for a director for this movie that I made a very real decision and called my agent and said, 'Don't ever let me do a Marvel movie,'" Cretton said as the rest of the cast sitting alongside him during the press conference started to laugh.

Cretton said he admitted that to Feige and a few other producers, including Victoria Alonso and Louis D'Esposito, as he made his pitch for the film.

"I explained to them when they made the announcement for 'Shang-Chi' something sparked in me that made me have to go in and just take a meeting and that turned into this," Cretton said. "When I was in the elevator going down, leaving that meeting, I thought, 'You're an idiot for saying that final thing.'"

Cretton said he later had a conversation with his friend and the "Black Panther" director Ryan Coogler in which Coogler gave him some advice about entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

"Black Panther," which was released in 2018, became the first comic-book movie to be nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards.

"I was scared of stepping into a big studio movie like this and scared of what it might do to me," Cretton said of the pressure he anticipated for "Shang-Chi." "Will I cave? I had a lot of fears."

"The thing that Ryan said to me, which really eased my mind was, 'The pressure is hard. It'll be the hardest thing, potentially, that you have done up to this point, but none of that pressure or none of those complications come from the people that you're working with or for.'"

Cretton said that was true, adding: "This is a very special place to work where - not to toot Kevin's horn - but there is an environment of curiosity, of exploration that comes from the top down.

"There's no fear-based mentality in this studio, which has really allowed us to take risks and chances and be able to instill that same fearless exploration with everybody involved in this film. And I think that's a huge reason that the movie turned out the way that it did."

In its opening four-day weekend, "Shang-Chi" grossed $90 million, setting a Labor Day box-office record on what's typically a slower weekend.

"Shang-Chi" is in theaters. It stars Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Tony Leung, Meng'er Zhang, and Michelle Yeoh. You can read our review here.