Project Hail Mary Writer Reveals How Ryan Gosling Made Adapting the Book Even Easier

Adapting an acclaimed novel like Project Hail Mary to film is always a challenging task. While translating the text from a print medium to visual, the screenwriter is constantly making a series of difficult decisions so the movie can work on its own merits and entertain not just fans of the book but also newcomers who are experiencing the story for the first time. Adaptations, including the faithful ones, make changes to the source material, and even with a protracted run time, odds are portions of the original book narrative will be omitted, condensed, or combined with something else to ensure the movie flows properly. Figuring out how and when to do that is never easy, but fortunately Drew Goddard has one less problem to deal with when bringing Project Hail Mary to the big screen.

In an interview with ComicBook to promote Project Hail Mary (out in theaters March 20th), Goddard explained how star Ryan Gosling’s involvement made writing the script much easier. “I was lucky in this case that [Gosling] had signed on before I had signed on,” he said. “So, by the way, screenwriter’s dream, when you’ve already cast Ryan Gosling before you even show up? That is the goal right there. What it was was a safety net for me, because I realized no matter what I write, he can play. If I write the craziest, broadest comedy, he’s gonna make it even better. If I write heartbreak, he’s gonna sell it. He can’t not filter his performance through his own humanity, and when you have that, it actually frees you to take bigger swings.”

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Ryan Gosling Was the Perfect Actor for Project Hail Mary

Over the course of his career, Gosling has established himself as one of Hollywood’s most versatile performers. As Goddard says, he’s adept at both comedy and drama. One of Gosling’s three Oscar nominations came for playing the lovable himbo Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, a film that perfectly utilizes the actor’s comedic sensibilities. At the same time, Gosling is also capable of delivering a compelling performance in something like the underrated biopic First Man, where he demonstrates the breadth of his range with an understated turn tapping into Neil Armstrong’s feelings of overwhelming grief. A look over his filmography highlights a variety of other examples from the action comedy The Fall Guy to musical La La Land to romantic drama Blue Valentine.

Project Hail Mary needed a well-rounded performer at its center to be successful. While the film tells a high-stakes, emotional story about a man’s mission to save Earth, it also sports some buddy comedy elements. The final Project Hail Mary trailer is built around the dynamic between Gosling’s Ryland Grace and Rocky, an alien Grace befriends on his mission. Several moment between the two are played for laughs, making Grace the ideal role for someone with impeccable comedic timing. That said, Gosling doesn’t seem out of place when the narrative turns serious and he has to sell audiences on the dire nature of the adventure.

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Based on the early reactions to Project Hail Mary, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller made a wise choice when they cast Gosling. The film is receiving very strong word of mouth, including a considerable amount of praise for Gosling’s performance. Just about everyone who’s seen the film so far has raved about Gosling, crediting him with anchoring the sci-fi film in a profound and affecting way. It’s a bit too early to speculate about what next year’s Oscar race could look like, but it sounds like Project Hail Mary features one of the best performances of Gosling’s career. Matt Damon earned a Best Actor nomination for his work in Andy Weir adaptation The Martian, so there’s no telling what could happen with Project Hail Mary.

Lord and Miller have always been great at casting, so if Goddard’s script was in place first when Project Hail Mary started development, odds are they would have found someone perfect for Ryland Grace (perhaps they still land on Gosling). But it’s easy to see why Goddard was so appreciative of the fact the film already had its leading man on board by the time he signed on. He was able to write specifically to Gosling’s strengths and didn’t have to worry about holding anything back because he knew the actor would be able to handle it. Taking “bigger swings” in the screenplay is what makes Project Hail Mary one of the most exciting sci-fi films of the year.

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