Project Hail Mary had a massive opening weekend, becoming the second non-franchise, non-sequel movie after Oppenheimer in the past decade to generate $80 million+ domestically. The film, based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, is receiving rave reviews. In a recent interview, star Ryan Gosling revealed how lonely he felt during the filming process.
Ryan Gosling explains arduous process of filming Project Hail Mary
The plot of the film revolves around Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who wakes up on a spaceship with his memory wiped out. As the plot unravels, he slowly gets pulled into a mission to save Earth from a cataclysmic event. In the context of the plot of the film, Ryan Gosling had to spend much of his time shooting alone, with a tightly focused, single-character-driven story.
He told IMDb that he had to spend around 100 days shooting alone, and he needed company desperately. The gruelling nature of filming this movie took a toll on Gosling, and he ended up making a mop friend just to keep his sanity.
“I remember there was a scene where I had been working for maybe a hundred days or something alone, and I was kind of needing company,” Gosling said, adding, “So I said, ‘I want to make a friend out of a mop, and I want to do the scenes today with this mop friend.'”
Gosling further stated that the creative crew of the film obliged immediately and built a mop friend for him from raw materials, and it even had a name—Moppy Ringwald.
“They both got materials, and they made this mop for me that they called Moppy Ringwald. I got to spend the day, we danced, you know,” he added. Gosling was appreciative of the filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller for being sympathetic towards his situation and giving him what he wanted for companionship.
“Not many filmmakers are going to stop everything and make a mop friend for you,” he remarked.
Interestingly, the film had an estimated budget of $200 million, and the production crew reportedly had time to shoot a single scene for lengthy periods. This was clearly one of the most challenging roles for Gosling, and at the end of the day, it might have been worth it, with the outpouring of love the film is receiving. With a science-heavy theme, the space drama is the second adaptation of an Andy Weir novel, the first being The Martian, which received seven Academy Award nominations.
