Ryan Gosling and the Project Hail Mary Creators Answer The 50 Most Searched Questions

Hello, I'm Ryan Gosling.

I'm Chris Miller.

I'm Phil Lord. And I'm Andy Weir.

And we are gonna answer

the most searched questions about Project Hail Mary.

[energetic music]

Okay. When was

Project Hail Mary first published?

May the fourth, 2021?

That's right [laughing].

Wow. [Phil laughing]

Wow, dang. Okay, I think I know

who could answer this one. I'll just take a nap.

Who wrote Project Hail Mary?

Hmm. Oh, its, uh,

Blake Crouch? No, no.

It starts with a B though,

I'm pretty sure. Yes.

[group laughing]

Kilgore Trout.

Kilgore Trout?

I'm gonna say. You're looking at him.

How about this guy right here?

Ba-da-doo.

This poor lady is getting. Assaulted.

It's okay, it's gonna be fine.

They knew the job was dangerous.

Where was Project Hail Mary filmed?

At Shepperton Studios, mostly.

Or schlep-erton.

Exactly, because it's a long drive, guys.

It's very close to the airport.

Thank you, Shepperton. And then various

locations around. Also, Alien

was shot there.

Fun fact. That's right.

And we were, like, right next door

to the Bridgerton exteriors.

Yes. We were?

Yeah, we were. We didn't use them.

It's a shame.

I feel like that was a lost opportunity.

Yeah, I feel like

we could have. We could have had a dream

sequence. Added some period drama

in there.

Anyway. All right.

And there were a lot of... Safe.

What grade does Grace teach?

Oh, there's actually two answers to this question.

The general answer is, I can't talk.

I should have stopped at May the fourth.

That's okay.

It's a good thing your whole job

isn't being able to speak. I believe in the book,

he's a sixth grade teacher,

and then he teaches seventh grade in the movie, I believe.

He's definitely not a sixth grade teacher in the book.

[Chris] Yeah?

I think it's seventh or eighth.

I like that you're like, I think.

You know,

I wrote it a while ago. Wow, we don't know

the answer to this question.

No one knows.

I want to say seventh.

Yeah. Do we know?

[Speaker] In the movie, it's sixth.

In the movie, it's sixth, I think.

Yeah, nobody reads the book.

All right.

[Andy laughing]

What was Grace's scientific specialty?

He was a molecular biologist

with a specialty in speculative xenobiology.

There you go. Oh.

What causes the sun to lose energy in the novel?

Now, not the movie.

That's right. It's also the same

as in the movie. It's the same.

It's the astrophage.

There's so much astrophage on the surface of the sun

breeding exponentially that it's actually absorbing

and consuming a non-trivial percentage of the sun's.

People ask this question?

They type this in?

There you go.

I believe it, because you watch the trailer

and you're like, oh, the sun is dying.

But why is the sun dying? Why is the sun dying?

I think people think it's really happening,

and that's motivating them to ask.

Oh, what does astrophage look like?

That one is pretty exciting.

You did a lot of that. Yeah.

You did a lot of takes where you were making that.

Yeah.

I don't know how to describe it.

Like a little black dot that you can't see inside of,

no matter what kind of light you shine through.

It's, like, completely opaque until you kill it.

And then you can see inside. But wait,

there was a day on set where you had to pretend

to see astrophage that you couldn't see,

and we could see it on the monitor.

Do you remember this?

We pulled the IR filter out of the camera.

We put a bunch of IR light, like little diodes

all over a bunch

of chicken wire. Oh, yes.

Yes, in space, yes.

This was in space.

The non-lab version he's talking about

is not when he's looking at it in the lab.

He's talking about when he goes to space

and he's in the Petrova line

and he's surrounded by astrophage.

Oh, yeah. Invisible to the naked eye.

And then when he shot the scene with a bunch of IR lights

on chicken wire. Is that how you did that?

It was all practical? Yeah, well,

a lot of it was practical.

It was a weird water rig

over the lens. There was an aquarium

in front of the lens where someone was dripping water.

And I was reaching out

and touching it. You can't see anything.

Touching things that you couldn't see,

and we were looking on the monitor going,

This is so beautiful. Everyone was teary-eyed

while I'm in this chicken wire box

pretending to touch things and everyone's like,

It's so beautiful.

It's true.

What's astrophage look like?

It's beautiful.

Yeah. [Andy laughing]

Why is the mission named Hail Mary?

It's after the American football play

where you're doing a last-ditch desperate effort

to throw a ball all the way downfield,

and hopefully someone catches it and you win the game

when you otherwise would've lost.

Against all odds. Against all odds.

Again, this poor woman.

I almost tried to murder.

I'm sorry. We have to stop.

We could throw it up. We could throw it anywhere,

just not at her.

[group chattering]

That's very safe.

Yeah, that one's very safe.

No one's getting hurt on that one.

Who leads the global response to the astrophage crisis?

Eva Stratt.

That's right.

Played by the wonderful Sandra Huller,

who is the most powerful person in the world.

Arguably of all time, at least during that period.

And a triple threat, turns out.

[Andy] She can sing. She can sing.

Like an angel.

It's amazing.

Someone asked this,

like they wrote this into. Yes, that's true.

You're questioning the whole premise.

I guess I'm not smart enough to ask a question like that.

There you go. A conspiracy theorist

on the show?

Oh, this is an interesting one, because it might

have different answers. Oh, two different

answers, yes.

What is Eva Stratt's nationality?

In the book, she's Dutch. In the book, she's Dutch.

She's from the Netherlands.

But in the movie and in real life, she's German.

She's German. She's actually East German.

She was born in East Germany, which is crazy.

Well, do you think I can get under there again?

Let's see.

Yep. You did it!

That's amazing.

That time it was on purpose,

so I feel good. But still,

I don't think I could do it if I tried.

That's amazing.

What happens to Earth if the mission fails?

[group laughing]

The Earth will cool 10 to 15 degrees.

Within the next 30 years, but the thing about astrophage

is that it grows exponentially.

As it breeds, it's doubling,

and so it'll get worse and worse and worse,

propelling us into a new ice age.

Much worse than an ice age.

It'll be like, the food system.

What is the word? Will collapse.

Yeah, the food... Food chain.

Chain, thank you.

Words, I'm not good with words.

It's never happened before, but we caught it on camera.

[Phil] The one time. Andy was human.

The food chain will collapse,

and then basically everything will go extinct, including us.

As Sandra said.

Sandra or Sandra?

What's the correct way to say that?

Sandra. Well, Zandra,

I heard her say earlier.

[both] Zandra?

It's a bit of a Z, yeah. With a Z?

She's a bit cooler than you.

Somehow, got yet cooler. Wrapped in a riddle.

What is the estimated timeframe

before Earth faces catastrophe?

30 years? Yeah.

You just spoiled that one for us, didn't you?

I pre-answered two questions.

You pre-answered it.

Oh, that's gonna bother me.

[group blowing]

There we go, thank you, thank you.

What is the name of the spacecraft?

Wow. I think it might be,

I assume we're talking about. I like to call her Mary.

Yes, that's the computer, right?

I assume we're talking about the Hail Mary,

or they could be talking about the Blip-A,

or they could be talking about the ArcLight probe.

Oh, I doubt that one.

Yeah. But you never know.

Probably the Hail Mary.

You would think, yeah.

You're, like, pretty.

Jeez, he's a savant. Oh my God.

Is there a sport that you could use this in?

I don't think so.

Is this is what it's like to hang out with David Blaine?

[group laughing]

He makes things disappear constantly.

All right.

Oh, where is the Hail Mary constructed?

Oh, that's interesting.

In space. In orbit.

Yeah, in the movie, we never really explained it fully,

but the idea was different sections of it

were built by different countries

and it was assembled next to the ISS in low orbit.

Oh!

All right, here we go. So close.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

It's kind of a Hail Mary.

There you go. Practice makes perfect.

Is Project Hail Mary a true story?

Yes, it was a documentary.

[group chuckling]

Okay, new one.

How accurate is the science in Project Hail Mary?

How dare you ask.

How dare you?

Obviously it's 100% accurate.

Yeah, if you drill down to the quantum level,

that's where my little made up BS is,

the idea that. I thought so.

Yeah, you knew.

It was obvious.

The cell membrane astrophage, yeah, can hold in neutrinos,

which normally you have 100 trillion neutrinos

passing through you every second.

Duh. We all knew this, obviously.

And they go clean through Earth,

but somehow astrophage can hold them in

and make them out of heat

and turn them into light as needed.

But everything else,

aside from that. Also the Xenonite

is a bit of.

Xenonite is just we don't understand the technology.

We don't understand how he managed

to make a largely indestructible material

out of a thing that's a gas

that also does not react with anything.

But all of the nitty gritty science.

Yeah. Outside of the invented

things. The relativity,

all that stuff like that,

the fact that there are aliens among us.

Do it. Do it, do it, do it.

Oh!

Not even close.

That's like an air ball.

[group laughing]

Did Ryan Gosling read Project Hail Mary?

Oh my God. Did you even read it?

I hear it's great.

You showed up to the set. I had someone read it to me.

I had my mom read it to me.

[group laughing]

Disrespect. Ray Porter style.

She did the whole thing.

Yeah, no.

Ah. There we go.

He is human.

In the cart. There we go.

I am fallible. It's true.

Who will play Rocky in Project Hail Mary?

Great question. Yes.

The answer is... The lovely and talented.

[All] James Ortiz.

Who is the head puppeteer

and also does the voice of Rocky.

But wasn't always supposed to be Rocky, right?

And just knew Rocky so deeply

and became so connected to him that we were like, oh.

There's no other choice.

We couldn't see any other choice,

and just for the record. You've been a caretaker

all along. Yeah, six puppeteers?

There was five total puppeteers

we call the Rocketeers. Yes.

[Phil] Rocky's glam squad.

How did I get that wrong?

How did I fail to throw a card

off the table? It's impossible.

It's a one in a million shot. I missed the ground.

Why did Stratt recruit Ryland?

[Phil] Hmm.

That's actually a complicated question.

Because of the paper he wrote initially?

Yeah, at the time they saw that astrophage

was living on the surface of the sun, oh, good throw, man.

Great throw.

And so they assumed

that it couldn't be a water-based life form,

and Ryland had written a paper

about a how life doesn't necessarily need water to exist,

and he was sort of a leading voice in that field,

and that's why she recruited him.

But then she kept him around for a variety of reasons,

because she believed in him.

She believed in him. Yes.

Why doesn't Grace know where he is?

Guys.

[group chuckling]

I don't think we need another one on that,

but you want to just for fun doing another read?

[Phil] Yeah.

Why doesn't Grace know where he is?

Yeah, it's just good to have the options.

It's good.

[group laughing]

Now you know how it feels.

[group laughing]

Be good to have, be good to have.

The answer's different in the movie

than it is in the book.

Right, but he does have amnesia

from the coma that he was induced.

In the book, they added a chemical

that would make him forget

because they didn't want him to remember right away.

Yeah. The book and the movie,

we sort of simplified that a little bit,

just because there's a lot of stuff that happens in the book

that doesn't fit into the length of the movie.

Yep. I mean, in theory,

does the movie disallow that interpretation?

No. It just doesn't explain it.

It doesn't go out of its way.

He does get injected by some stuff.

All sorts of stuff. By that sketchy scientist.

[Phil] I played it. Yeah.

That there was a chemical involved.

What is astrophage?

Ooh, Andy?

Astrophage is an alien monocellular life form

that is sort of like a mold

that lives on the surface of stars,

and it spores out and breeds to other stars

and infects them, and that is kind of the core problem

that people are having in the movie.

Now imagine pitching that to a movie studio.

Astrophage means,

bonus question? Star eater.

Star eater.

How does the Hail Mary create gravity?

Centrifuge? Centrifuge.

Yes, but kind of yes but no, right?

Well, yes.

Well, first off, when it's thrusting,

when it's in thrust configuration,

it's just the engines thrust forward

with enough gravity to provide you with gravity,

and the centrifuge configuration,

it spins around to provide centripetal force.

And there are two, nope.

And as Ryland said, what's the line?

That's how they used to make butter.

They used it to churn butter in the Civil War.

Yeah. [Phil laughing]

We'll fix it in post.

It spins two different ways in the movie.

Yeah. One extra way,

so that it can link up with Rocky's ship.

What propulsion system does the ship use?

Spin drives. Yes.

The astrophage is the fuel.

1,009 of these.

[All] Little engines that could.

Yep.

Oh shit, now everyone's watching.

Oh. It's like skipping a stone.

I don't know how to turn this,

like where this goes from here.

Are you trying to load the dice?

Unbelievable, unbelievable.

Look at this cheater. Yeah.

What was the purpose of the beetles aboard the Hail Mary?

Probes that they were going to send back to Earth

to report their findings

and give any information to help them save the world.

Yes, and a story justification

for a really expensive licensed song opportunity.

Yes, yes.

This one is one I thought would actually

get Googled a lot, which is what happens

to the other two astronauts.

It's a big question, and it's a mystery in the book

what happened to them.

We don't know.

On the way, at different times, each of them got sick,

and the medical robot was not able to fix it,

but it never is fully explained.

Do you have a secret answer?

So, I know the answer to this, but I'm saving it

for potential sequel materials.

Oh! What?

I can't believe I never asked you that.

I did. You did, that's right.

I did.

[group laughing]

But I'm keeping it secret for now.

Okay.

What star system is the Hail Mary sent to?

Tau Ceti. Tau Ceti, baby.

Which you can see with the naked eye, wow.

I think you can see it.

Have you ever stargazed at that bad boy?

In the past, yeah. By yourself, yeah?

How long does the journey to Tau Ceti take?

Well, it depends on what inertial reference frame

you're referring to. That's right.

Time is relative, you guys.

Yes, relative is. If I'm measuring from Earth,

11.9 light years away?

Yeah, it took about.

12 years. 12 to 13 years,

in that range.

He experienced four years because of the time dilation.

[Andy] That's right.

So it's 12 light years away?

It is, yeah, 12 light years away,

and it took a little bit more than 12 years,

because the Hail Mary wasn't going.

If it's taking the light 12 years

to get from there to here now,

is there a chance it's not there now

and that we're looking at it in the past?

It blew up. In fact.

The next day. David Blaine

made it disappear.

[group laughing]

Well, in fact, it's even better.

It's like, the stars very far away that you look at

through a telescope and stuff like that,

may well, like, you know,

they're like 100 thousand light years away

if they're on the other side of our galaxy.

Or if you're looking at stars in the Andromeda galaxy,

they're 2 million light years away,

and they could well be gone right now

and you're just seeing the light,

and that light will still keep coming

for another couple million years.

Would you say that when we look into the sky,

we're looking into the past?

Absolutely.

We are, absolutely.

That's right.

Yeah, we all knew this was was gonna get

really profound.

Why does everybody love Project Hail Mary so much?

Maybe with a little more skepticism.

It's the star.

Because you guys directed it.

Because you wrote it.

I think it's the star turn

of actor/producer Ryan Gosling.

I feel like somebody was frustrated when they did that.

Oh, I see.

You want to give a read

on that one? Disbelief.

Why does everyone love Project Hail Mary so much?

Yeah.

That sounds like a real question.

And what's worse is these by definition

are things that are made before the movie came out

because we're doing this before the movie came out,

so it must be talking about the book.

Right. Why do people

like this book so much?

What the?

Because it's awesome, jagoff, that's why.

[group chuckling]

So antagonistic. Wow.

Yeah. Guys,

I don't know what to make of this.

Is Project Hail Mary spicy?

What?

That's a question?

That's a real question

that someone wrote. Is that your question?

No, this is one of the top most searched questions.

That means more than one person asked this.

[Chris] Right.

Is there a big spice community?

What does that mean?

I mean, maybe they're asking about,

maybe it's parents who want to know

if it's suitable for children. Appropriate for children?

Oh. So, there's no sex.

There's no curses.

There's very, very little.

There was a small curse in the book.

There's a little cursing in the book.

But Ryan's character never curses in the book?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, once, once in the book.

He curses once.

And the movie is what, PG-13?

Mm-hmm. Yeah,

and it is absolutely suitable

for all ages. It's spicy in that

[Phil] the colors are very bright. Yes.

Yeah.

The adventure is very spicy.

Yeah.

[Andy] There's danger.

You're on it, you're almost there.

It has a... A reverent tone?

Paprika-colored sequence.

I don't know. I don't know, yeah.

What is Rocky's home star?

40 Eridani.

Ready?

Fast, easy.

Ah. What species is Rocky?

He's an Eridian. Eridian.

Because he's from 40. [Andy blowing]

There you go, 40 Eridani.

We're in the speed round.

Why can Rocky not see light?

Hmm.

Because his species evolved on a planet

where light doesn't reach the surface,

and so there was no benefit to evolving eyes.

What is unique about Rocky's biology?

What isn't unique? Yeah, for real.

I mean, probably referring to echolocation,

the fact that his skin is mostly rock,

that he doesn't have a face or eyes.

Or, he does have a face.

It's just hard to read.

It's kind of a poker face.

It's a real poker face.

It is tough to play poker against him.

What planet does Rocky come from?

He comes from, well, our designation is 40 Eridani AB,

and Ryland there starts calling it Erid.

Ah. Oh, it's back.

He's back. I'm back.

What is the atmosphere of composition of Erid?

It is 29 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth,

and it's almost entirely ammonia.

There you go.

I knew that, I just wanted you to say it.

That's right.

What is the significance of Xenonite in the mission?

It's a nigh indestructible material, extremely strong,

so strong that it can hold in 29 atmospheres

of mostly ammonia with big, flat panels

that would absolutely not work if you tried that with steel.

Very strong.

Also, it's made out of Xenon, and no one understands how.

Also, there is a plot point about...

Well, yes, there's that.

[Chris laughing]

One more, one more.

Come on, come on. Do it.

We're gonna get a strike.

There you go.

That was fun, at least.

That was spicy. That was very spicy.

Coming at you.

How does Rocky communicate?

Through basically whale song, right?

He has bladders of air that he pushes back and forth

across vocal cords inside of his body,

so it goes [vocalizing].

All right, there's also a lot of nonverbal communication.

Yes, there's a lot of fun.

We sat down with this woman, a fellow filmmaker,

Chrissy, who is deaf, and she talked a lot

about the ways that people communicate

with their hands and their bodies,

and so we talked a lot about that together on the set.

How do Grace and Rocky communicate?

A tonal, they create a tonal language.

Well, I mean they just,

Grace. Very slowly.

Grace kind of records various words for Rocky,

then has a computer identify them

and play them over a speaker, which was your idea

to have that be in the movie.

I thought that was cool.

That's nice of you to say.

What nickname does Rocky call Grace?

Grace [laughing].

Friend Grace?

Doesn't he call him an Eridani?

No. He kind of gives him

a burp sound.

Well, in his language, it's like, burp.

I think he just calls him Grace, friend Grace,

or something like that.

That's all I got.

That's all we got.

Whoa.

No, that was the one

I put under there. Oh, really?

From before.

Well, first of all, we got them all right except for one.

I think so, yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Well, what's our score?

[Speaker] You got 100.

Okay, cool.

[group applauding]

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you.

[energetic tones]