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Ryan Gosling on the Hope, Inspiration of ‘Project Hail Mary’

Ryan Gosling on the Hope, Inspiration of ‘Project Hail Mary’

Last updated on: March 16, 2026 at 10:54 pm by DeWayne Hamby

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Ryan Gosling on the Hope, Inspiration of ‘Project Hail Mary’ 2026-03-16T22:54:12-04:00 DeWayne Hamby

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Just as his character, Dr. Ryland Grace, embarks on his own journey, Ryan Gosling’s story of getting the new Amazon MGM film “Project Hail Mary” to the screen was also quite the adventure. In early 2020, before the world shut down, the book’s author Andy Weir sent Gosling the manuscript hoping he would not only star but also produce. Gosling was instantly hooked and brought directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord (“The LEGO Movie,” The Spider-Verse series) on board.

Ahead of the film’s March 20 opening, Gosling spoke with Reel Faith about the film’s themes of hope, optimism and human resilience.

When you’re choosing a role like this, do you find that you tend to gravitate more toward heart or humor? Or do those things have to coexist equally for you?

Ideally, they coexist, and sometimes you have to sort of bring one or the other. But the beauty of what Andy Weir does is, this is his kind of specialty. He’s masterful at it. And I think he understands that the humor helps sort of get through a lot of this dense scientific information. And the movie is definitely trying to be and is grounded and scientific ideas so at the same time, but it also has to be entertaining. So, I think he strikes this perfect blend.

So, at Patheos, we cover a lot of stories about faith and hope and redemption, and I noticed a really strong undercurrent of that in this movie, whether it be faith in something bigger than ourselves or faith in our fellow man or fellow life form, or faith in ourselves even. So, what do you feel like this story has to offer audiences who are looking for that kind of inspiration?

It gave me such an overwhelming feeling of hope when I finished it. While I was reading it, it felt like what Andy does, and why he’s so special is he’s offering this opportunity to pivot away from fear and towards curiosity. We’re so saturated with apocalyptic narratives and sort of just bleak outcomes, rarely given solutions. I think what he’s done is he’s giving us this opportunity to say maybe the future isn’t something to fear, rather just something to figure out, and that we’re capable of incredible things as human beings. It’s kind of our thing — that’s what we do. We make the impossible possible, and to be reminded of that in such a ground it’s not, it’s not escapism, it’s a reminder of what we’re capable of.

You play this character, Dr Ryland Grace, who is capable of greatness, but he clearly battles this imposter syndrome. He’s constantly doubting himself or removing himself from the room. I’m curious, have you ever kind of related to that struggle?

Yeah, it’s called the human experience. We all experience it, right? I mean, all the time, especially in doing this. This film felt kind of impossible. When Andy gave me the manuscript. It hadn’t been published yet, and it was at a time when theaters were closed, and movie productions had all shut down. And it was sort of like, ‘how are we going to make this?’ It had the potential to be, I felt an all-timer. The book is considered one of the great science fiction works of our time. It just is incredibly ambitious and I think, important. So, it felt like very daunting, and needed to have the best of the best, and five years later, here we are. But you know, there was a lot of doubt in there, and of course there’s a lot of fear and anxiety and all the things that the character is feeling. So, I definitely connected to him on that level. Of course, the fate of the world was not in my hands. But I think that’s the beauty of what Andy’s done, that he’s sort of saying that we are capable of so much more than we’re being told.

“Project Hail Mary,” directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and starring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, and Milana Vayntrub, releases March 20 from Amazon MGM Studios.

Special thanks to Nate Powers for his contribution to this coverage.

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