When Consequence sits down with Project Hail Mary star Ryan Gosling, it’s at a press junket in the literal control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. So the concept of exploring space feels very close at hand, as he gestures at the screens behind him tracking the path of Voyager 2. “It’s nice to be making this film right now that’s celebrating and acknowledging how we’re capable of these incredible things,” he says.
On its own merits, the movie he stars in is also a pretty incredible achievement: A sci-fi movie packed with both real science and real heart after overcoming a few monumental creative challenges. In Project Hail Mary, based on the book by Andy Weir, Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a scientist flung across the galaxy on a mission to literally save the world — specifically from a microbe that is slowly but surely consuming the sun.
Says Gosling, “I think I was really struck, in the book, by the fact that there was a sense of optimism about our ability to not fear the future, but figure it out, whatever it may be.” It’s something he credits to Weir’s special talent “for characters whose superpower is that they turn anxiety into curiosity.”
One of the movie’s biggest challenges, according to the creative team, was one of those characters, who arguably serves as the film’s second lead: A five-legged alien who Grace meets, dubs “Rocky,” and ultimately befriends.
Weir knew that bringing Rocky to life would be the toughest part of his book to adapt — in fact, he says, “I think everybody in the production top to bottom knew that this movie’s going to live and die on how well they do Rocky.”
Which is why screenwriter Drew Goddard was so scared. “I was terrified of Rocky because I knew how hard that was going to be, to take a spider crab that doesn’t have a face, and made out of rock, and make it the beating emotional heart of the story.”
At least, Goddard was terrified until he found out who would be directing the movie. “Once I heard our directors were going to do it, I relaxed. Because there was nobody else that could have pulled this off.”
Directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord do have that reputation in Hollywood now, after making improbable pitches like a feature adaptation of 21 Jump Street and a movie based on LEGOs. Yet Lord also admitted that Rocky’s lack of a face and whale-song-esque native language was concerning, laughing that those factors “felt like a great challenge to an emotional relationship — which is something that we really cared about. One of the big things we set out to do was make you fall in love with these two characters and their friendship.”
The key, Gosling says, was ensuring that Rocky was as physical a presence as possible on set, which Lord and Miller achieved through the magic of puppetry. “The emotional core of the movie is this bond between Rocky and Ryland… So I think the choice to shoot with Rocky as a real practical element, no CGI, and to have puppeteer James Ortiz being his voice — even though that was problematic in a lot of ways, it was the lifeblood, the heart of the movie.”
As Lord jokes, “We’ve always said this movie is about answering the question, ‘Can adult men make friends, if the entire universe depends on it?'”
In the end, Weir says, “They nailed it. They just absolutely nailed it.” Based on this weekend’s box office, the world agrees. For more, watch the full video interview above, edited by Tyler Franklin. Also revisit our review of the film.
