Ryan Gosling and Rocky in ‘Project Hail Mary’
Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
NEED TO KNOW
Project Hail Mary, in theaters March 20, stars Ryan Gosling as a scientist who joins a spider-like alien in outer space for a world-saving mission
The alien, who Gosling’s character dubs Rocky, was a combination of real puppetry and animatronics voiced by James Ortiz
“He’s a diva, let’s be honest,” Gosling quips of his “very high-maintenance” scene partner
Ryan Gosling had a costar like no other in Project Hail Mary. In fact, Rocky is a bit hard to describe.
“I don’t like to call him a puppet, but they’re calling him a puppet,” Gosling, 45, tells PEOPLE ahead of the release of the epic adaptation of Andy Weir‘s sci-fi novel (in theaters Friday).
“I think he’s more of a …” the producer-actor trails off, trying to characterize Rocky. “Well, he’s a diva, let’s be honest. Very high-maintenance. Has his own glam squad.”
Ryan Gosling and Rocky at a ‘Project Hail Mary’ screening in Paris, France on March 11
Credit: Martin LELIEVRE / AFP via Getty
Ultimately, the “unique” five-limbed, spider-like, rock-adjacent creature is “five puppeteers dressed like ninjas,” as Gosling explains. “It’s a whole thing.”
Project Hail Mary follows Gosling’s scientist-turned-astronaut Dr. Ryland Grace, whose world-saving mission in deep space takes a turn when he meets an extraterrestrial on a similar quest, whom he eventually befriends and names Rocky.
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That character came to life with multiple versions and combinations of puppetry and advanced animatronics, thanks to directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, creature effects supervisor Neil Scanlan, voice actor and puppeteer James Ortiz and more.
Ryan Gosling in ‘Project Hail Mary’
Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
“James Ortiz was meant to just be the puppeteer and we were going to figure out Rocky’s voice later. But James started doing the lines for me so that I had someone to read lines with, so I wasn’t just imagining this dialogue,” recalls Gosling.
The puppeteer “understood Rocky so deeply that it got to a point where he knew what Rocky would say, what he wouldn’t say, what he would do,” he adds. “James was Rocky and James is Rocky now and you can’t imagine it any other way.”
So why is Rocky such a diva? “It was such a challenge,” says the Barbie star, recalling the crew dismantling and reassembling sets to be able to fit and film the creature. “It would’ve been much easier to put a tennis ball there and figure it out later in CGI.” But Lord, Miller, and their producer-star were determined to stick with practical effects so that Gosling was acting opposite a real-life Rocky in every scene that required it.
Rocky and Grace, as Gosling says, “can’t exist in the same atmosphere. They don’t speak the same language. They can’t even be in the same room. They have to figure all these ways out so that they can solve the bigger problem of saving the universe.”
In having to work around a real-life puppet and the squad of performers operating him, “we were having the same experience” as the characters, concludes Gosling. “There was this sort of meta-ness to the way that the shooting went and the story that added, I think, to the magic of the film.”
Ryan Gosling in ‘Project Hail Mary’
Credit: Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios
Also adding to the magic: Gosling’s daughters Esmeralda Amada, 11, and Amada Lee, 9, who he shares with partner Eva Mendes, stepping in on set to play occasional costar. “I had an earpiece in my ear and they would talk for Rocky,” reveals the actor with a smile. “There’s some moments in the movie where I’m laughing or I’m just so charmed by him, which is like, it’s actually my kids talking to me and helping me out.”
Project Hail Mary, costarring Sandra Hüller and Lionel Boyce, is in theaters as of Friday, March 20.
Read the original article on People