Ryan Gosling on his upcoming sci-fi thriller ‘Project Hail Mary’

LOS ANGELES – “Well, let’s be honest, Rocky is a bit of a diva. He’s very high maintenance. He requires a lot. He has a glam team called the Rockyteers. They dress like ninjas. It’s a whole thing.”

Actor Ryan Gosling, in a recent interview, quipped about his new “diva” friend, Rocky, an alien creature, with whom his astronaut character forms an endearing bond in “Project Hail Mary.”

In the thrilling new sci-fi buddy adventure movie, directed by the creators of the “Spider-Verse” films, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Ryan gives his career-best performance as Ryland Grace, a seemingly ordinary science teacher who was recruited to help avert a crisis – the sun is dying, and the human race is running out of time.

Gosling’s most challenging role 

Set in the near future, “Project Hail Mary” finds Grace waking up in a spaceship, not remembering who he is or how he got there. He discovers that his fellow crew members have died. As he regains his memory, Grace remembers his mission – to find out the mysterious substance that is causing the sun to dim.

Alone on the spaceship, he must solve the riddle to save the Earth. But a surprise encounter with a friendly alien, Rocky, whose planet is also facing extinction, means Grace now has an unexpected ally.

In his most difficult role to date, Ryan is on screen alone most of the time or interacting with Rocky, a physical puppet performed by James Ortiz, who also voices the alien character.

Wearing a helmet in majority of his scenes, Ryan often has to rely on his expressive eyes to reflect various emotions. And what a superb performance he delivers with just his orbs. I dare say that this early, Ryan should be a best actor nominee when the next awards season rolls in 2027.

In our one-on-one video interview at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, I asked the actor, previously hailed for his work in “La La Land,” “Barbie” and “Half Nelson” (he earned Oscar nominations for all three), what helped him pull off his most challenging role thus far. He answered:

“The directors did many things that were helpful. But if I have to pick one that was the most helpful, it was the choice to not have Rocky, my alien friend, be CGI so that he was a practical effect. He was a puppet. So that allowed me the opportunity to have him there in the room with me.

“And then James Ortiz, who was the puppeteer and the voice. We could really develop an actual bond; we could improvise and explore any direction we wanted to go in. And so it felt like a real relationship. I think that’s part of the magic of what finds its way on screen.”

It’s also to Ryan’s credit that he has a genuine rapport with Rocky, despite how he looks, as described by director Christopher Miller in the production notes – “a character that looks like he’s made of rocks, has no face, has five-leg arms that he can use for different purposes.”

“But it was difficult,” Ryan said about his scenes with Rocky in a press conference, also at the Four Seasons (quotes in this piece are from my one-on-one with Ryan, the press con and a roundtable, also at the Four Seasons).

Puppeteer James Ortiz

The Ontario, Canada native recounted why James’ audition to become the Rocky puppeteer stood out. “The really beautiful thing was that, in the story, as Rocky is trying to find his voice, we have this brilliant puppeteer named James Ortiz, who, first of all, came into the audition different than anyone else. We had the best puppeteers in the world. Everyone was amazing.

“James came in at the very end. He pushed the Rocky puppet aside and he put his hand on the table.  And he started doing this (drums his fingers) and making these little, like, neurotic ticking sounds and talking with his fingers. And we were like, oh, yeah, that’s him.”

The 45-year-old actor continued, “And from that moment on, James was only meant to be the puppeteer. And he started to say the lines to me in character, so that I had somebody to say lines with.  And then oftentimes, I’m up in a harness for a long time with a helmet. It’s very isolated.

“And I have an earpiece in my ear and I’m able to talk to James. And James has such a deep connection to this character that he’s able to talk to me as Rocky off script and we end up doing 20-minute, 30-minute, hour-long takes.”

“This movie owes James a lot because he, like Rocky, just kinda came out of nowhere and became the key ingredient to the special magic of the film.”

James, a veteran in New York’s theater scene, described in the film’s notes the alien character that he helped create: “Rocky has a genius-level intellect. He is an inventor and an engineer, but I think on the inside, he’s the genetic splice of a miserly old man, a peppy Labrador, and a deeply anxious 14-year-old boy.”

‘It had to be them’

“Project Hail Mary” Novelist Andy Weir, directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord, Sandra Huller and Ryan Gosling at the press conference. Photo by Ruben V. Nepales

The filmmakers like to stress that Rocky is not a CGI character. Director Christopher Miller explained, “It ended up being actually a beautiful marriage of puppetry and animation. There was an animation team that did amazing work, trying to imitate a lot of the work that James and his team had done for some of the shots that could not be done in puppetry.”

For Christopher, his “Hail Mary” moment in making the film is realizing, “The challenges of this story of trying to make you care about a creature that has no face, no eyes, no mouth.  And trying to tell a story that takes place mostly inside a spaceship, in outer space, with one human being.

“This movie was a bit of a Hail Mary experience,” Ryan agreed. “It’s such a difficult film, a huge undertaking. It’s such special material. It doesn’t get more epic than this.

“And so pulling this off just required everything I had in me and the help of the best of the best. It’s just exciting to finally be here, to have it finished, and to watch people’s emotional reactions to it.”

Ryan, who is also one of the film’s producers, credited his two directors. “There was no one else. No one can make this movie. It had to be them. This movie doesn’t exist without them.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller on the set of their film “Project Hail Mary.” CONTRIBUTED

Director Phil Lord, asked which moments of directing Ryan blew him away, pointed out, “The scenes that I think about are when he first meets Rocky. One of my favorite things about Ryan as a performer is that he walks into all these scenes as a handsome movie star and immediately confers status to the other characters in the scene. He’s always looking up to Rocky.

“He’s always thinking of Rocky as someone that he wants to please, that might be judging him. He goes like, I’m sorry, I’m talking too much, I’m just really happy to be here. He’s trying to impress Rocky.

“He’s not looking at Rocky as a little pet or something. He’s always the low man in the scene, and I think it is one of the secrets to why he’s so appealing.”

Drew Goddard, who wrote the screenplay based on the Andy Weir novel of the same name, agreed: “I can say this. Ryan, close your ears – he doesn’t like it when I embarrass him, but there is no other actor on the planet that could have done this. It is a stunning degree of difficulty to hand to an actor. You’re asking someone to be in a tube with nobody to react to for a hundred days.

“To swing from comedy to drama, often in the same sentence, over and over. To open up your heart and put it on the screen in every take. And I was terrified. It was like, this is too much to ask anybody. But when I heard Ryan was doing it, it just felt like, okay, I can’t say no to this.”

Gosling on teachers and outer space

When asked if he’d make a good astronaut in real life, Ryan quickly said he would not. “I would put the nod in astronaut just like this character. I related to that part of him that he was not good at space. I would not be good at space.

“And is there life out there?” Ryan repeated my question aloud. “It’s exciting to live in a time where we’re exploring the universe to the levels that we are and it seems like the conversation is not if but when will we discover it?”

On how he was in school and in such subjects as physics, chemistry, astronomy and math, Ryan admitted, “I didn’t graduate high school, so that might answer your question. I was not good at those subjects. I did struggle in school.”

“I was excited to play the kind of teacher I wanted,” the former Mouseketeer shared about a memorable teacher in his school days. “I did have this one teacher. I won’t mention her name because she might not want to be dragged into all this, but she really had a big impact on me.

“She set this reading goal, where if we read the most books, you could take a ride in her Jeep. The person who read the second most books won a New Kids on the Block CD.

“I didn’t get the Jeep ride, but I did get the CD, which I really wanted. When she left at the end of the year, I had, for some reason, seen ‘Dead Poets Society.’ And when she left, I stood on my desk, and I said, ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ A reference that none of the other students got and I’m not sure that she got. But she really made an impact on my life.”

Sandra Huller

Ryan also thanked the key members of his “dream team” who were present at the press con – directors and producers Christopher and Phil, co-star Sandra Huller, screenwriter and executive producer Drew, author and producer Andy, producers Amy Pascal, Rachel O’Connor and Aditya Sood.

A surprise scene is Sandra, who plays the head of the Hail Mary mission, singing. “We were shooting on an aircraft carrier,” Ryan recalled how the “Anatomy of a Fall” actress’ song moment came about.

“Sandra and I, our dressing rooms, were down the hall from each other. I was sitting there, and I heard the voice of an angel coming down the hallway. I was like, what is that? It was like the heavens pouring honey in my ear.

“I was like, what is going on? I followed this down and it’s Sandra singing. I was like, ‘You can sing like that?’ And she was like, ‘Ah, you know, yeah.’ I said, ‘Will you please sing in this movie?’

“Sandra was like, ‘I’ll think about it.’ We were like on pins and needles for two days. Then she goes, ‘Okay, I’ll sing.’ She chose this Harry Styles song (‘Sign of the Times’), which ended up being the heart of our whole marketing campaign.

“It just embodied the whole spirit, energy and soul of the movie. It’s just a small example of what Sandra brings to the film in every scene, really. And it ends up being one of, if not the best scene in the movie.  So, thank you, Sandra.”

Sandra, like Ryan, also gave a shoutout to her daughter. “And thanks to my daughter, whom I asked if it’s actually cool to sing that song, because you never know. And she said yes. So, yeah, that’s fine.”

Meryl Streep

Also, one of the treats in the film is the voice of the great Meryl Streep being tried by Grace as Rocky’s voice so he can be audible in the film. Drew said, “I remember writing that part knowing I am giving these two gentlemen (the directors) a gift because they are going to take this concept, run with it so hard that they are going to have so much fun. I couldn’t wait.”

Phil chimed in, “It’s like a seven-minute scene with all of the voices. So the way we did it on stage was we had the two guys there. We had Ryan with the computer, and then we had preloaded content. And then we also had different crew members come onto a microphone, and Ryan had an earwig.

“Then we were like, hey, what about Meryl Streep? We have to go ask Meryl Streep to do the pass. Luckily, our producing partner, Amy Pascal, had worked with her many times.

“We were like, Amy, you’ve got to ask Meryl. It’s a magical moment in the movie. And Meryl said yes and couldn’t have been more playful and fun. She did so many different takes. She even asked us, like, why don’t you give me a line reading?”

On what he hopes moviegoers, especially the young ones, will take away from “Project Hail Mary,” the Golden Globe Best Actor winner for “La La Land,” commented, “Andy Weir’s voice is such an important voice right now. It’s a unique and beautiful way to look at the future. You go to another galaxy, you make an alien best friend, you save the world. It’s not bad for a Friday night.”

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