Ryan Gosling on his New Film, Producing It & Working With Phil Lord & Chris Miller

TL;DR

Ryan Gosling discusses producing Project Hail Mary, staying faithful to Andy Weir's book, and why Phil Lord and Chris Miller were the only directors for the job.

Key Points

• 1.Gosling produced the film and made faithfulness to the source material his top priority. He kept Andy Weir on set as much as possible, running every decision by him, because the book was already stress-tested as one of the best sci-fi novels ever written.
• 2.Weir's core philosophy — that impossible ideas become possible through human ingenuity — drove the film's tone. Gosling, as a father of two young kids, valued making a story that counters apocalyptic narratives and shows humanity's capacity to solve problems.
• 3.Phil Lord and Chris Miller were essential because of their rare ability to blend comedy and deep emotion. Gosling cited their work on 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Spider-Verse as proof they consistently make films better than expected.
• 4.Rocky the alien was created using full puppetry, not CGI, with five puppeteers operating him simultaneously. Lead puppeteer James Ortiz and his team, nicknamed the Rocketeers, dressed in all-black ninja suits, which Gosling says gave the relationship genuine improvisational energy and real on-set presence.
• 5.Rocky's design deliberately avoids traditional 'cute alien' tricks — no big eyes, no face, five arms, made of rock. Despite this, audiences end up emotionally devastated by the end, which Gosling calls the film's central magic trick.
• 6.Weir's scientifically grounded take on extraterrestrial life stands out from typical sci-fi. Rather than bipedal aliens, Rocky exists in his own atmosphere, communicates differently, and reflects the idea that contact may require humans traveling to aliens rather than the reverse.