The film stars Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling (‘Barbie’) and Sandra Hüller (‘Anatomy of a Fall’), as well as Lionel Boyce (‘The Bear’), Ken Leung (‘Joker: Folie à Deux’), Milana Vayntrub (‘Ghostbusters’), and James Ortiz as the voice of Rocky.

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of traveling to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California to sit down in-person with Ryan Gosling to talk about his work on ‘Project Hail Mary’, the film’s humor, working with a puppeteer, improvising on set, why he liked acting alone, collaborating with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and playing a nontraditional hero.

Related Article: Movie Review: ‘Project Hail Mary’

Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in ‘Project Hail Mary’, from Amazon MGM Studios. Photo credit: Jonathan Olley. © 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Moviefone: To begin with, the film has a lot of humor in it. What was your first reaction to the screenplay and did the funny read on the page?

Ryan Gosling: I think it was a combination of all those things. I mean, Andy is funny, Andy Weir, the writer of the book. It’s such a part of his voice, is to acknowledge that things are funny and not just make them intentionally serious. Also, I think what’s special about him is not to make things intentionally bleak. There’s an optimism about his work. There’s this sense of don’t fear the future, just figure it out. With that, and with that approach and letting curiosity take over for anxiety, there’s sort of an opportunity for humor in that.

MF: Can you talk about the friendship Grace forms with Rocky, and what was it like for you working with the puppeteers on set to create that relationship?

RG: I think it was an experience I’ll never get to have again. It just was a once in a lifetime experience to work in this way with Rocky and the Rocketeers, which is what we called them. That was his glam squad. He’s high maintenance. He’s a bit of a diva, but he’s worth it. He’s the best costar you could have.

Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in ‘Project Hail Mary’, from Amazon MGM Studios. Photo credit: Jonathan Olley. © 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.

MF: Were you surprised by the way Rocky looked and were you able to improvise with the puppeteers on set?

RG: I was involved in all of that, so I wasn’t surprised. There wasn’t a reveal moment, but I was surprised really by James Ortiz who came in and became that lead puppeteer for Rocky. Because he was just supposed to be the physical puppeteer, but he started reading the lines with me to just have someone to say the lines with. But then he had such a deep connection to Rocky, and he understood him so deeply that we got to the point where we could improvise for hours sometimes off script as the characters on camera. That’s where this starts to become something else where it feels like a real relationship, and it feels like it’s happening in real time because it is. That’s something I don’t think you could get any other way but shooting it practically.

MF: You spend a lot of the movie acting alone. What was that like for you to do those scenes by yourself and not have another actor to react to?

RG: I liked it. I did. It was fun because you get to explore any idea you have. It was an opportunity to just take every scene in any direction I could think of and experiment. So, I liked it.

(L to R) Directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord with cinematographer Greig Fraser and actor Ryan Gosling on the set of their film ‘Project Hail Mary’, from Amazon MGM Studios. Photo credit: Jonathan Olley. © 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.

MF: Can you talk about collaborating with directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller on set? Were they open to trying different things and seeing what works?

RG: Yes. I remember there’s a scene where I had been working alone for a long time and I was missing a partner and I said, “I need to make a friend out of a mop, so I have someone to talk to and I’m going to do that.” They were like, “Hold everything.” They both started scouring the set to find stuff we could do. We made this character we called “Moppy Ringwald”, and she became my dance partner and my friend for the day. That’s just what it was like working with them, that I could come to them with this need, and they were just on it and ready to shoot it. It ended up becoming a fun part of the film.

MF: Finally, your character is not the traditional movie hero and is even reluctant to go on this mission. What was it like for you to play a vulnerable character like that?

RG: I mean, I related to that. It was very relatable. I think that’s what’s so strong about this story is that you have a guy that’s not a natural hero that doesn’t see himself that way at all. He just wakes up and finds out that the fate of humanity is in his hands and his instinct is to run away, but he can’t. So, he must find some way to face it and deal with his fear and suddenly let curiosity take over from the anxiety he’s feeling in the panic. I think it was great for me and I think for an audience too to go through that experience of, “Okay, what happens after the panic? What happens when we say, we’re afraid, but now we must fix this?”

‘Project Hail Mary’ opens in theaters on March 20th.

What is the plot of ‘Project Hail Mary’?

Astronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakens on a spacecraft with no memory of himself or his mission. He deduces he is the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti system to save Earth from disaster. To do so, Grace must rely on his vast array of scientific knowledge, sheer ingenuity, and human will, but he learns he is not alone: he is aided by an alien he dubs Rocky (voice of James Ortiz), who has come to save his world from the same fate.

Who is in the cast of ‘Project Hail Mary’?

• Ryan Gosling as Dr. Ryland Grace
• Sandra Hüller as Eva Stratt
• Lionel Boyce as Officer Steve Hatch
• Ken Leung as Yáo Li-Jie
• Milana Vayntrub as Olesya Ilyukhina
• James Ortiz as the voice and lead puppeteer of Rocky
• Priya Kansara as the voice of Mary

(L to R) Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller on the set of their film ‘Project Hail Mary’, from Amazon MGM Studios. Photo credit: Jonathan Olley. © 2026 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.

List of Phil Lord and Chris Miller Movies and TV Shows:

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