Ryan Gosling's kids made him look 'smarter' for 'Project Hail Mary'

Ryan Gosling is blasting off to a galaxy far, far away. First, though, he has to save this one.

Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, “Project Hail Mary” (in theaters March 20) rockets Gosling into an interstellar journey as Ryland Grace, a middle-school science teacher turned reluctant astronaut. The sun is dying out, Grace is sent on a last-ditch mission to keep humankind from going extinct, and he teams with an alien to help each other’s planets.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a lightning-in-a-bottle story and characters, and it had potential to be one of those core memory movies where you remember where you were when you saw it,” says Gosling, a producer on the film, which adapts Andy Weir’s sci-fi bestseller. He and his wife, Eva Mendes, “always want to find films that we can bring our kids to and have that core memory moment, but they're hard to find. I felt like, OK, well, we might just have to make it.”

Gosling, 45, has dabbled in sci-fi and space movies before − “First Man,” “Blade Runner 2049” – but he’s packing serious punch with “Hail Mary” and next year’s “Star Wars: Starfighter,” set five years after “The Rise of Skywalker.”

The lifelong “Star Wars” fan talks about how his daughters – Esmeralda, 11, and Amada, 9 – informed his “Hail Mary” look and how he stayed sane on the set. (Hint: A mop was involved.)

This conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Q: Have your kids seen “Hail Mary” yet?

Ryan Gosling: They've seen many cuts, and they've given many notes. They're the harshest critics, but they are always right, for the most part, and they've really been so helpful. When I was playing with the character, just trying stuff out, and I threw on some glasses, my daughter went, “You look smarter with glasses.” And I was like: “Well, thank you very much. I think I will be wearing these in the film. Thank you for that note.”

I wondered about Grace’s glasses. Usually, people put them on top of their head if not using them, but he hangs his down below his chin. Was that a conscious character quirk?

Well, I do now wear glasses, but I didn't at the time, and that seemed like how someone might wear them. I thought it made sense. Then Phil started making comments like, “You know that's a really weird way to do that, right?” And I was like: “It is? Oh, then I'll do it the other way.” He was like: “No, we shot for two weeks. That's how you have to do it now.” And so that's what it is.

Did you keep anything from the "Hail Mary" spaceship set?

A few scars, my friend. I've never had a movie take a bigger chunk out of me, but it's never been more worth it.

The irony of zero (gravity) is it's supposed to appear elegant, like some kind of space ballet. And the reality is to shoot it is very inelegant and quite painful. But also what I loved is that we could embrace that in this movie. The fun part was that some astronauts came to set to advise us, and they were like, “Actually, that's what it's like.” They always get bumps and bruises.

When you’re locked in a spaceship by yourself for a full day of filming, how do you keep from going crazy?

You don't keep from going crazy. You do. And then they film it (laughs). That was part of the journey for the character. But I remember one day in particular, I was like: “I need a scene partner today. I’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel of my creativity.” (The directors) dropped everything and we went and made a mop person that they called Moppy Ringwald. She had a dress and sunglasses and all that, and I spent the day dancing and laughing and talking and crying with her. And it ends up in the movie.

What's special for you about doing “Hail Mary” and “Starfighter” back to back?

They’re both the kind of films I've waited my whole life to make. I've been doing this for 30 years now, and I feel like I couldn't have made them before, even if I wanted to. I needed to have all this experience under my belt in order to be able to approach them and really have a chance at making them the films that they could be.

Did you feel like a kid making a "Star Wars" movie?

It was incredibly surreal. I had “Star Wars” sheets before I ever saw the film. It was like The Beatles – it's just always been there and informed more than I even knew. I first became aware of what a font was with "Star Wars," or what a score could be through John Williams, or what a sound effect was through the lightsaber sound, or what a villain was or could be. It's kind of endless. Its effect is so deeply ingrained that I was peeling back the onion layers of that while shooting, realizing just how much of it had formed my entire sense of storytelling and filmmaking.