LOS ANGELES – Critics are calling “Project Hail Mary” a hopeful and “hugely entertaining” story as the beloved science fiction novel hits the silver screen this weekend.
CBN News met up with the film’s star, Ryan Gosling, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to discuss this epic story of a scientist on a mission to save Earth from extinction.
Gosling worked for years to bring it to the big screen. He plays Ryland Grace, a high school teacher sent on an unlikely mission.
“I identified with a lot of his fear and anxiety that he’s struggling with in the whole movie,” Gosling explains. “Wow. This was definitely the hardest film I’ve ever made, maybe the hardest I will ever make. And it’s been a five-year journey.”
“It was a challenging undertaking. At times, it felt like an impossible mission in its own right. And I felt very linked to the character in that way in that it was overwhelming. But what I admire about the character and what I loved playing was that he was able to turn his anxiety into curiosity.”
The film hinges on his performance. “I’ve never had a film take a bigger piece of me, take a bigger chunk out of me than this movie did, but it’s never been more worth it either,” he says.
The story is about a fictitious miracle, filled with real-life lessons, based on Andy Weir’s best-selling sci-fi novel. Drew Goddard wrote the screenplay.
Weir tells us, “It’s actually sort of a pastiche of a bunch of different book ideas I had that are all glued together, and I sanded off the edges. I had one idea for what if you were an astronaut who woke up in space with no memory. Another one is I’ve always wanted to do a first contact story. Then another one is, I was like, what if we had a mass conversion-based fuel? Not in a thousand years, but right now. Wow. And another one, a character completely lifted from a different book that I’d started, that I abandoned that book was a woman who’s in charge of everything and has unrivaled authority to solve a serious problem. These were all unrelated ideas that I realized could all be put together to make one pretty cool story.”
Goddard’s task was to capture the book’s perfect blend of soul and science. “I think for me, it’s often the things that people sometimes miss about Andy’s writing of why it connects so strongly is because there is this soul, this human soul. And I always start with that,” he says.
We also spoke with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the film’s directors, who praised the talented work of the set and prop designers. “They work super hard, build these unbelievably gorgeous sets. There’s no green screen anywhere in this picture. There’s unbelievable puppetry and creature design. It’s astounding. It’s miraculous the way that a film crew can come together and make you believe the impossible.”
It all comes together to make the impossible – like a school teacher in space – seem possible.
“Look, as an experience, it’s so epic and entertaining. You go to another galaxy, you make an alien best friend, and you save the world. It’s not bad for a Friday night,” Gosling says. “But it’s not, I think, an escapist film. I think it’s really about reminding us what we’re capable of. So I think that’s where the emotional element, why people who are seeing the film are so emotional seeing it, because it’s really pretty affirming.”
