Project Hail Mary, Interview Ryan Gosling

"I was given the manuscript for this by Andy Weir to both be in it and to produce, but I was given it at... I mean, really, that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I loved The Martian, but nothing could prepare me for this journey I was about to go on and just how incredible this book is. And it’s so fun now because this book is so beloved by so many people; they’re so fiercely protective of it. I’ve never worked on something where I’m so confident that the story and the characters are great and that the audience is going to love it because it’s already been 'stress-tested' by the audience of book readers, and it’s so beloved. So, I just knew if we could stay true to the book, that we would make a great film.

My first thought was like, I needed to get a better producer than me involved because this was sort of... seemingly impossible, so I needed the best. And I knew that Amy Pascal loomed large in her legend—she’d made Little Women and Spider-Man—and if you can do that, you can do anything. So I approached her and asked her if she would produce this with me, and I was so lucky that she said yes.

And then the next thought was: who can direct this? And there really was no question in my mind: it had to be Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. There was no one else for me that could do this. So I reached out to them and they loved the book as well, and we all joined forces to start to make the 'impossible' possible.

The setup is that this character, Ryland Grace, wakes up in space with no memory. And he slowly regains his memories and he realizes that the reason he’s there is that the sun is dying. And then an alien shows up who’s also trying to save the sun, and they form this incredible friendship as they each try to save their home worlds, just by believing that the impossible is possible.

Ryland Grace is a middle school teacher who used to be in academia but lost his career. He lost his ambition, I think, but he still believes that he's right. And he’s just exceptionally smart but still very relatable. He’s not stoic in any way, he’s not your typical hero, and he’s quite fearful—I think realistically fearful. He reacts to every terrifying thing with the same amount of horror that we might, but he somehow manages to not let his fear rule him and he just keeps trying.

Sandra Hüller was another person where I just couldn't imagine anyone else but her. I loved her work so much, but also she had this warmth to her, even though she could also play the 'strong silent' type. She was just this incredible, very special balance of both. It just was like that from the first scene: it was fun, and it was fun until the end. She’s the other heart of the film."

"I was given the manuscript for this by Andy Weir to both be in it and to produce, but I was given it at... I mean, really, that's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I loved The Martian, but nothing could prepare me for this journey I was about to go on and just how incredible this book is. And it’s so fun now because this book is so beloved by so many people; they’re so fiercely protective of it. 

I’ve never worked on something where I’m so confident that the story and the characters are great and that the audience is going to love it because it’s already been 'stress-tested' by the audience of book readers, and it’s so beloved. So, I just knew if we could stay true to the book, that we would make a great film. My first thought was like, I needed to get a better producer than me involved because this was sort of... seemingly impossible, so I needed the best. And I knew that Amy Pascal loomed large in her legend—she’d made Little Women and Spider-Man—and if you can do that, you can do anything. So I approached her and asked her if she would produce this with me, and I was so lucky that she said yes. 

And then the next thought was: who can direct this? And there really was no question in my mind: it had to be Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. There was no one else for me that could do this. So I reached out to them and they loved the book as well, and we all joined forces to start to make the 'impossible' possible. The setup is that this character, Ryland Grace, wakes up in space with no memory. And he slowly regains his memories and he realizes that the reason he’s there is that the sun is dying. And then an alien shows up who’s also trying to save the sun, and they form this incredible friendship as they each try to save their home worlds, just by believing that the impossible is possible. 

Ryland Grace is a middle school teacher who used to be in academia but lost his career. He lost his ambition, I think, but he still believes that he's right. And he’s just exceptionally smart but still very relatable. He’s not stoic in any way, he’s not your typical hero, and he’s quite fearful—I think realistically fearful. He reacts to every terrifying thing with the same amount of horror that we might, but he somehow manages to not let his fear rule him and he just keeps trying. Sandra Hüller was another person where I just couldn't imagine anyone else but her. I loved her work so much, but also she had this warmth to her, even though she could also play the 'strong silent' type. She was just this incredible, very special balance of both. It just was like that from the first scene: it was fun, and it was fun until the end. She’s the other heart of the film.

One of the things I love about Ryland Grace is that he’s not a hero in any traditional sense. He’s a middle school teacher who’s been thrust into this extraordinary situation. He’s scared, he’s confused, and he doesn’t have all the answers, but he has this incredible curiosity and this scientific mind that allows him to start putting the pieces together. The science in the book is so integrated into the story. It’s not just 'window dressing'; it’s actually the way the characters solve problems and the way they survive. And then, of course, there’s Rocky. The relationship between Ryland and Rocky is the heart of the movie. It’s this beautiful, unexpected friendship between two beings from different worlds who have to find a way to communicate and work together to save everything they love. Working with Phil and Chris has been an incredible experience. They have such a unique vision and a way of blending humor and heart with high-concept sci-fi. They really understood the spirit of Andy’s book and wanted to bring that same sense of wonder and optimism to the screen. I think audiences are going to be blown away by what they’ve created. It’s a massive, epic journey, but it’s also a very intimate story about connection and what it means to be alive."

"I’ve had the opportunity to work with astronauts who have been to space, been to the moon, and they all have these like, when they come back, they all have these really profound experiences that they so like desperately want to share and feel so lucky to have had. But it creates a context for them that they feel is important to share and that we would all benefit from having. 

So I do think, and this isn’t shilling for IMAX, I do think that the size of this screen and the scope in which this film operates and the cinematography of Greig Fraser and the epicness of the journey and the fact that you go to another galaxy and you see other planets and you touch the stars, it does feel, it has been for me, I think, a kind of transformative experience and I believe it will be for others who see it. The concept of a Hail Mary is, I think, you know, it’s most commonly used now I think as a football term, which is, or but it’s also I think in any sport, it’s like a Hail Mary pass. 

It’s that pass when the clock has run out and you’re at the other side of the court and you just throw the ball. It’s a Hail Mary. It’s the last-ditch effort when everything else has failed. It’s when there is no hope but you still are not hopeless. It’s that effort. It’s that belief that miracles are possible. There’s a special place in hell for harnesses and wire work. It is, nothing has ever been more different than how it looks. Like, the way that it feels to be in a harness, however it looks, imagine the opposite. It’s uniquely challenging and, yes, feels incredibly ungraceful and labored and false. Yet, when you look at it, it seems as though it’s the total opposite. 

Grace is not an astronaut, so he doesn’t know how to behave in zero-G, and so it’s all just very difficult for him, which worked for me because it was very difficult for me. So I was able to connect with him on that level. And we tried to create at certain points almost like we watched Chaplin’s Modern Times to sort of try and create sequences that were both like a terrible dance routine that felt like balletic but also just like complete failure after failure because it felt like that was a way we’ve never seen zero-G as well and might be more realistic for someone that hadn’t trained to be out there. We had some real astronauts on set and they came during this one of the scenes that I’m referencing where I’m just kind of going tail over tea kettle bumping into things, like just, it was very ridiculous, but felt like it might be truthful. 

And I was a little bit cautious to see what they would think of it and they were like, ‘it’s kind of what it’s like’. That it’s often presented in this very elegant way but oftentimes they were saying you get so many bumps and bruises because you just forget and you’re all over the place and there is no up and down and in reality it’s not like a ballet at all. Eunice was our stunt coordinator and just what a gem of a human being and a, she just instantly becomes one of your favorite people you’ve ever met and such an incredible work ethic, sense of humor, unique mind, really really wanted this to feel authentic but also like a kind of stunts in zero-G that you’ve never seen. So she just was relentlessly after it feeling authentic but also feeling authentic in a way that we had never seen. And she choreographed these incredible sequences that were at times like Charlie Chaplin-esque, you know, that, but on wires and and that were beautiful and then fell apart and then she would construct something beautiful and then she would deconstruct it and all the while never wanting it to just feel like for entertainment’s sake, just trying to find the realistic, truthful way for it to be entertaining. And I just found her a constant inspiration and, again, no one else could have done this film. This film would not be what it is if Eunice hadn’t been our stunt coordinator. I knew there was no way that I could do it without Chris and Phil. 

I think they are so unique as filmmakers. It’s also, it comes from their collaboration. So this film is about collaboration. They have such a unique way of of finding humor in dark and bleak places. They make things that shouldn't work work. And they love things to be hard. Everything that they’ve done is really hard. And I knew that that they would really be excited by how difficult this was going to be and in fact not only were they game but they wanted to make it more difficult. And that’s exactly what it needed."