Screenwriter Drew Goddard reteamed with “The Martian” author Andy Weir to return to space with “Project Hail Mary.” It stars Ryan Gosling as a teacher-turned astronaut who joins forces with an alien to discover why all the stars except one are dying.
In an interview, Goddard talked about writing dialogue for smart characters, why his favorite scene is one he didn’t write, and what he would ask the alien character if he had the chance.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How do you translate the dense technical and scientific information into a visual medium with a very limited runtime?
Part of that is just the challenge of any adaptation. I learned early that just wordcount-wise, I’ve got about 5 percent of the words in a screenplay that an average novel has. So, you just know going in that you’re going to have to make some tough calls. And so I tend to just focus on what I emotionally connect to in a novel.
Andy’s work is pretty easy because I connect so strongly with his writing. And I start with the soul of the story, which in this case was the story of two individuals coming together from opposite ends of this galaxy to try to save the universe, and I build from there.
There’s a scene with those two individuals in a small space that recalls Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple.”
We did talk about that! We wanted to embrace the reality of a first-contact situation as much as we could, really play with the small interpersonal details that could happen in a situation like this, and embrace the minutiae of communication, which delighted us.
In some ways, this book is a screenwriter’s nightmare because most of the scenes are between two individuals, one of whom can’t exist in our atmosphere, doesn’t have a face, and speaks in whale songs. You take away all of the methods of communication that would make things simpler for us. Not having eyes is such a huge visual mountain to climb because eyes are so expressive.
Chris Miller and Phil Lord, our directors, and I were all a little scared, but we also realized early that the whole point would be to force our hero, Ryland Grace, to see the world through somebody else’s point of view. It was like forced empathy, as we would describe it.
And as we developed it and made it challenging, the very challenges became the point of the movie.
How did hearing Ryan Gosling deliver some of those lines affect you?
I just described this as a screenwriter’s nightmare. The part of it that’s a screenwriter’s dream is stepping into a Ryan Gosling-led project because he has such a staggering range.
Part of what I loved about the book is that it swings from comedy to drama, from heartbreak to terror. Constantly, we’re switching emotional gears. And not every actor can be comfortable doing that. Whereas Ryan lives in that. You look at his body of work. He is not afraid to go for broad comedy. He’s not afraid to break your heart. He can play terror. He can play suspense. He can play literally anything you want to give him.
Usually, no actors are on the project when I’m writing, but Ryan signed on to the movie before I did. So, for the first time in my career, I was writing without fear. There’s always a part of you when you’re writing for the unknown, where you’re protecting yourself to give you the most options possible. And you end up writing it down the middle.
With Ryan, I knew I didn’t have to do that. I knew I could swing for the fences with every page.
Is it daunting to try to write dialogue for characters who are super smart about science and engineering?
The good news is I have Andy Weir. It’s sort of like my own secret weapon because Andy is much smarter than me. He has much more scientific knowledge than most people I’ve met. So I always knew I wasn’t going to try to outsmart Andy. My job here is actually to capture the way smart people sound. Rather than being smart. That’s sort of freeing.
And I’m comfortable around scientists. I grew up around scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico, which is Oppenheimer’s town. I’ve just simmered in that broth for a long time. I know what geniuses sound like, and my job is to capture that. And then when I would screw it up, Andy was always there to say, like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, but the smarter way to say it is this way.” So it was very much a collaboration.
The engineering side doesn’t get enough credit. I’m so happy you noticed that, because there’s an engineering mindset where they just don’t take no for an answer. There’s no right or wrong with an engineer. It’s just, “We haven’t figured it out yet.” That is the way they approach any problem. It’s not that they failed to solve it. It’s that they just haven’t solved it yet.
That’s a wonderful way to view both a problem and the world. And you can feel that with Rocky. He is never dissuaded. He’s always coming up with the next thing to try and isn’t afraid of failing at it. And it was exhilarating to live in that space.
You’ve created a non-linear story before, as in “Bad Times at the El Royale.” What does that do for the narrative?
It absolutely was one of the great challenges of the book and the story in general. We jump back in time, sort of between past and present. We played with that a lot, but at the end of the day, the movie largely follows the book’s structure. I do believe the first rule of adaptation is “do no harm,” so if I loved it in the book, I try to make it work in the screenplay.
Part of what I think people will discover as they watch is that they present themselves as sort of standard flashbacks, but as the movie continues, you start to reveal things that are not just the average flashback. They start to reveal things that happen that fundamentally change the present that you’re watching, and that’s part of what made it so exhilarating, honestly. That’s why we decided to keep it that way: we realized, as we got into the last third of the movie, that the juxtaposition between past and present became one thing and led us into really interesting territory.
One scene that was not in the book was the karaoke scene, which adds a lot of poignancy and heart to the story.
It’s a fun thing to be the screenwriter on a movie, and my favorite scene is one I have nothing to do with! But it’s true. We did have a scene, in the flashback, where the potential crew of the Hail Mary is meeting for camaraderie. We call it a calm before the storm scene. In the description, it was “just people are singing karaoke in the background.” We just wanted a chance to show them connecting before things start to go bad.
Chris and Phil started saying, “We should have some of our cast members sing karaoke.” And then that became Ryan hearing Sandra Hüller and saying, “Sandra should sing because she’s an extraordinary singer.” And it really came together in 24 hours before it started being shot. Everyone was sort of gently asking Sandra to please sing, and she picked the song. And now I cannot imagine this movie without that song.
To me, that moment of Sandra singing captures the whole soul of the movie, both what the first half has and what’s to come in the second half. It’s one of those things that if we tried to pick a better song, we wouldn’t have been able to. Sometimes the movie gods just smile on you, and these small things really make the movie transcend. I loved writing [Hüller’s character] Stratt.
Why?
I am a product of women believing in me even when I did not believe in myself. It starts with my mom, who was a schoolteacher for 50 years. It continues through writers like Lucia Berlin, who saw something in me and believed in me, and it continues through studio presidents like Mary Parent, Amy Pascal, and Emma Watts.
I saw a lot of these women in Stratt, Women who are tasked with leading great endeavors and finding a way to do it with compassion, even when the weight of their decisions is greater than any of us could really understand. I think all of that found its way into this movie.
It’s unusual to have a middle school teacher as a hero in a film with a lot of technology and science.
This movie is about teachers saving the universe. I read the book and just immediately fell in love with the idea of a schoolteacher saving the universe. I have a personal connection through my mom, but I just have a deep love for teachers, teaching, and learning. It felt like something that deserves to be celebrated. Quite honestly, I don’t think we can celebrate teachers enough. And if we can do it here with this movie, we have a chance to, at the very least, give them a small piece of the credit they deserve.
When I read the book, I thought to myself, oh, I have to do this. I have to do this for the teachers.
If you had a chance to talk to Rocky, what would you want to ask him?
I would ask him more about his mate. We touch on his mate Adrian, and he lets us know that they’ve been together a very long time, and it’s definitely a side of Rocky I’d like to learn more about, and also about the other Eridians he’s fond of. You can learn a lot about anyone by asking about their loved ones.
