Ryan Gosling’s scars from filming ‘Project Hail Mary’
Ryan Gosling reveals the physical demands of filming ‘Project Hail Mary’ and the advice he received from a real astronaut.
NEW YORK – I should have known that taking Andy Weir to a science museum would be like taking your child to a candy store and asking him to keep his hands in his pockets.
A few days before the movie “Project Hail Mary” was released, the science fiction writer and I met at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The film adaptation of Weir’s 2021 novel stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a former middle school science teacher and sole survivor of a last-ditch mission to save humanity from a sun-eating microbe.
The book may be chock-full of what Gosling calls “space math,” but even right-brainers will find something to love through the blood pressure-boosting missions and lovable lumpy alien Rocky.
Therein lie Weir’s hallmarks as a writer: difficult mathematics, humor, and high-stakes gambles. Before his first novel, The Martian, landed at Penguin Random House in 2014, he self-published it for free on his blog. Today, Weir’s novels enjoy a cult following among science geeks and general readers alike. I can confidently say that I have never seen a book as widely read as Project Hail Mary on the New York City subways.
“I thought I was writing for a niche audience of people who wanted to know about mathematics,” Weir tells me. “I thought I was writing for 0.001% of people, but I found that a lot of people enjoyed it. They were like skimming through the math. They were like, ‘I believe in you.'”
He has no interest in cutting down on the science to make it easier to read. That said, he is careful to include only the information readers actually need to understand the plot (“You don’t have to pass the test later,” he says.) His main purpose, after all, is to entertain.
Watch Andy Weir become a nerd at the Science Museum
Andy Weir is distracted. Of course it is. The museum houses an impressive collection of scale models, factoids, and images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Upstairs at the Hayden Planetarium, a new short film narrated by Pedro Pascal is showing. Wearing a tan fedora and his hands in his pockets, Weir always has a half-smile, as if he’s telling a geeky joke. We look up at the dangling planet models and remember the days before Pluto was demoted from the planet lineup. He told me about a Pluto shirt he once saw that made him laugh along with the words, “I was big enough for your mom.”
We’re joined by Dr. Ruth Angus, the museum’s associate curator of astrophysics. they speak the same language. I feel like I’m on a tricycle. The two soon begin exchanging trivia and analogies of relative distance. Weir performs a very complex math problem on one of these when prompted. He looked off into the distance as he calculated, and his unwavering smile appeared on his face.
“You’re really surprising me right now,” she tells him, and I agree. He missed my number by about two digits.
Both Weir and Angus learned science through fiction. Weir grew up reading his father’s “Boomer science fiction.” His “Holy Trinity” are writers Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert A. Heinlein. The movie Apollo 13 was also a big inspiration.
Angus, who describes himself as a “super nerd” and Weir fan, believes the author is helping to inspire a new generation of science enthusiasts.
“I think your book does what a lot of science communicators want, which is to write something compelling enough that you want to read it, and maybe pick up some science along the way,” Angus says. “Many science communicators just want to get people’s attention.”
Weir humbly counters that the job of science communicators is much more “difficult” because they actually want to educate.
“If someone comes away from there remembering science, I’m happy for that, but I know my place in the world. It’s just to entertain people and have a good time when they’re reading,” says Weir. “But I’m not good at science, so I do it my way.”
Weir says Ryan Gosling brought ‘nuance’ to ‘Project Hail Mary’
As a film, “Project Hail Mary” is surprisingly faithful, recreating many important scenes moment by moment. Unlike The Martian, which starred Matt Damon, Weir was the producer. His only job was to “cash checks.” This time he was there for filming and making important decisions.
“Actually, I have something important to say,” he quipped.
He was the resident expert on the “nitty gritty” of movies, which makes sense considering some of the science he made up. He makes it clear that most of it is accurate, but he’s proud to say that “you have to go down to the quantum level to find the bullshit.”
“I was the only source of information on that,” he says.
When you see Gosling’s character writing on a cosmic whiteboard, pay attention. Before shooting these scenes, Weir wrote down the calculations to copy, and Gosling worked hard to memorize them. Then, while the cameras were rolling, the directors gave him the exact numbers through earphones.
According to Weir, Gosling was not very interested in science, but Gosling cared that the film was as accurate as possible. Gosling flies solo for much of the film, a demanding role.
“He added a lot of nuance to the character just with body language and alternate lines. He came up with other lines, and of course he had to improvise. So he ended up with a version of Ryland that was much deeper and more nuanced than anything I’d ever written,” says Weir. “I think my biggest weakness as a writer, in my opinion, is the depth and complexity of my characters. I’ve come up with interesting plots and interesting pseudoscience, but my characters are kind of shallow, so I’m working on that. I want to be better.”
Create your alien buddy Rocky in “Project Hail Mary”
Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller brought Weir’s vision of Rocky to life. Puppeteers, rather than CGI, brought Ryland’s best friend to life. In a separate interview with USA TODAY, Gosling called the engineering-minded alien who travels with a glamorous team of six puppeteers “a bit of a diva.”
Weir said his interest in working with Lord and Miller stemmed from their experience animating films such as “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” He praised Rocky’s execution, saying it was “exactly what it says in the book.”
“I couldn’t have done a better job,” Weir said. “They know how to create animation. You need animation to make a faceless rock interesting. It all has to be done through body language and movement.”
Forget about saving humanity. This unexpected friendship is the true gem of this story. If you’re a reader of Project Hail Mary, you know how much this little alien can tug at your heartstrings. I point out that Weir shouldn’t sell himself short. Indeed, this duo has a lot of emotion and personality.
“This is me working hard. This is me working hard. This is my best!” he said to me as he bowed.
Claire Mulroy is USA TODAY’s books reporter, covering hot releases, chatting with authors, and diving into reading culture. please find her on instagramsubscribe weekly book newsletter Or tell her what you’re reading cmulroy@usatoday.com.
