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

Hello, I'm Ryan Gosling. I'm Chris Miller. I'm Phil Lord. And I'm Andy Weir. And we are going to answer the most searched questions about Project Hail Mary. Okay, when was Project Hail Mary first published? May the 4th, 2021. That's right. Wow. Okay, I think I know who could answer this one. I'll just take a guess. Who wrote Project Hail Mary? Link Crouch? No. It starts with a B, though, I'm pretty sure. Kilgore Trout. I'm going to say... You're looking at it. How about this guy right here, Andy? This poor lady is getting... Oh, it's okay. It's going to be fine. They knew the job the other way. They knew the job was dangerous. Where was Project Hail Mary filmed? At Shepperton Studios, mostly. Or Shlepperton. Exactly, because it's a long drive, guys. It's very close to the airport, if you call it. And then various locations around... Also, Alien was shot there, fun fact. We were right next door to the Bridgerton exteriors. Yes, we were. It's a shame. I feel like it was a lost opportunity. Yeah, I feel like we could have dreamed... We could have sequenced... Just added some period drama in there. Anyway. 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 middle. I can't talk right now. Yeah, that's true. I'm such a stalker. You made the fourth. That's okay. It's a good thing your whole job isn't... 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. I think it's seventh or eighth. I like that you're like, I think. Oh, you know... Wow, we don't know the answer to this question. No one knows. I want to say seventh. Yeah. Do we know? We cast... In the movie, it's sixth. Yeah, no, yeah. Nobody reads the book. All right. What was Grace's scientific specialty? He was a molecular biologist with a specialty in speculative xenobiology. There you go. 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 energy. People ask this question. They type this in. There you go. Well, I'm sure. I believe it because you watch the trailer and you're like, oh, the sun is dying. But 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? I don't know. It's pretty exciting. You did a lot of that. Yeah. You did a lot of takes where you were making out. 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 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. Oh, yeah. Put a bunch of IR light, like little diodes all over a bunch of chicken wire. Yes. In space. Yes. Is this in space? Yeah, 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 we shot the scene with a bunch of like IR lights on chicken wire. Is that how you did that? That was all practical? Yeah, a lot of it was practical. And then it was like a weird water rig over the lens. There was like an aquarium in front of the lens where someone was like tripping water. And I was reaching out and touching it. Touching things that you couldn't see and we're looking on the monitor going, this is so beautiful. It's going to be glorious. 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. Why is the mission named Hail Mary? 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 have lost. Against all odds. Again, this poor woman. I almost tried to emerge. I'm sorry. We have to stop. We could throw it up. You can throw it anywhere, just not at her. Very safe. Yeah, that one's hers. No one's getting hurt on that. Who leads the global response to the astrophage crisis? Ava Strat. That's right. Played by the wonderful Sandra Hooler who is the most powerful person in the world. Arguably of all time, at least during that period. And a triple threat, turns out. She can sing. Like an angel. It's amazing. Someone asked this, like they wrote this into... Yes, that's true. You really... You're questioning the whole premise. I just don't know. I just, I'm not smart enough to ask the question like that. There you go. A conspiracy theorist on the show. This is an interesting one because it might have different answers. Two different answers, yes. What is Ava Strat's nationality? In the book, she's Dutch. She's from the Netherlands. But in the movie and in the real life, she's German. She's German. She's actually East German. She was born in East Germany, which is crazy. Quality fan, get under there again. Let's see. You did it! That's amazing. That time it was on purpose. Yeah, but still, I don't think I could do it if I tried. That's amazing. What happens to Earth if the mission fails? Earth will cool 10 to 15 degrees within the next 30 years. But the thing about astrophase is that it grows exponentially. As it breathes, 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. I'm not. We picked the right business. Never happened. The right shop. Glad you caught it on camera at the one time. And he was human! The food chain will collapse, and then basically everything will go extinct. Including us. As Sandra said. That's fine. Sandra, Sandra, what's the correct way to say that? Sandra, Sandra. Well, it's Zandra, I heard her say earlier. Zandra? It's like a bit of a Z. With a Z. Yeah. Okay. She's even cooler than you. Inside and in the air. Got yet cooler. What is the estimated time frame before Earth faces catastrophe? 30 years. Yeah, you just, you just spoiled that one. I know, I'm sorry. I pre-answered two questions. Yeah, you pre-answered it. Oh, that's gonna bother me. There we go. Thank you. What is the name of the spacecraft? Wow. I think we might... Hail Mary? I assume we're talking about... I like to call her Mary. Yes, that's the computer, right? Yeah. I assume we're talking about the Hail Mary. Or the Blip-A. 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, uh... Oh my god. Is there a sport that you could use this in? I don't think so. This is what it's like to hang out with David Blaine. He makes things disappear. Absolutely. All right. Oh, where is the Hail Mary constructed? Oh, that's interesting. Space. In orbit. 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. All right, here we go. So close. You miss 100% of the shots. You don't get circles. It's kind of the Hail Mary. Practice makes perfect. Hey, there you go. Is Project Hail Mary a true story? Yes, it was a documentary. Okay, new one. How accurate is the science in Project Hail Mary? How dare you ask? How dare you? Obviously, it's 100% accurate. So, yeah. Yeah, if you drill down to the quantum level, that's where my little made-up BS is. The idea that the astro... Yeah, you knew. You knew. It was obvious. That the cell membrane of astrophage can hold in neutrinos, which normally you have 100 trillion neutrinos passing through you every second. 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... Xenonite also is a bit of a... 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. Did Ryan Gosling read Project Hail Mary? Oh my... Did you even rate it? I hear it's great. You showed up to the set... I had someone rate it to me. I had my mom rate it to me. She did all the work. Disrespect! Ray Porter style, she did it all. She did the whole thing. Yeah. No. There we go. Wow, he's a great, he's human. I know, there we go. I know, listen, you got it. I am fallible. That's true. Who will play Rocky in Project Hail Mary? Great question. Yes. The answer is... The lovely and talented... James Ortt. ...who is the head puppeteer and also does the voice of Rocky. But wasn't always supposed to be Rocky, right? That's true. And just knew Rocky so deeply and became so connected to him that we were like, oh. Oh, there's no other choice. We couldn't see any other choice then. Just for the record, there were a total... You've been the caretaker all along. Yeah. Six puppeteers? There was five total puppeteers. Five total puppeteers. Called the Rocketeers. Yes. Yeah, Rocky's glam squad. Oh! How did I get that wrong? How did I fail to throw a card off the table? One in a million shot. I missed the ground. Why did Strat recruit Ryland? That's actually a complicated question. Because of the paper he wrote? Yeah, at the time, 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 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. I don't think we need another one on that. But you want to just for fun do another read? Yeah. Why doesn't Grace know where he is? Yeah. It's just good to have the options. That's good. You know how it feels. 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 in 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. Yeah. I mean, in theory, does the movie disallow that interpretation? No. We just don't explain it. It doesn't go out of its way. He does get injected by some stuff. All sorts of stuff. I was a sketchy scientist. I played it. That there was a chemical involved. What? He's 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. How does the Hail Mary create gravity? Centrifuge? Centrifuge. But yes, but kind of yes, but no, right? Well, yes. So, well, first off, when it's thrusting, when it's in thrust configuration, it's just the engines thrust forward with enough gravity to find you with gravity. In the centrifuge configuration, it spins around to provide centrifugal force. And there are two. Nope. And as Ryland said, that's how they used to make butter. They used to use it to turn butter in the Civil War. Yeah. 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 a rocky ship. What propulsion system does the ship use? Spin drives. Yes. A thousand and nine. The astrophage is the fuel. A thousand and nine of these little engines that could. Oh, ----. Now everyone's watching. Oh. But actually good. It's like skipping a stone. Yeah. Really. I don't know how to turn this, like where this goes from here, but you're trying to load the dice. Yeah, I know. It's true. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Look at this cheater. Yeah. What was the purpose of the Beatles 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. 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. I can't believe I never asked you that. I did. You did. That's right. I did. But I'm keeping it secret for now. Okay. What star system is the Hail Mary set to? Tau Ceti. Maybe. 11.9 light years away. Which you can see with the naked eye. Yeah. Wow. I think you can see. Yeah. Have you ever stargazed at that bad boy by yourself? 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. Yeah. Relativistic. I'm measuring from Earth, 11.9 light years away. Yeah, it took about 12 to 13 years in that range. He experienced four years because of the time dilation. 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 the next day. David Blaine made it disappear. Well, in fact, it's even better. Stars very far away that you look at through telescope and stuff like that may well... They're like 100,000 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 going to 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 and she wrote it. I think it's the star turn of actor-producer Ryan Gosling. I feel like somebody was frustrated. What's the deal? Oh, I see. You want to give a read on this one? Disbelief. Why does everyone love Project Hail Mary so much? Yeah, that sounds like a real question. 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 hate this book so much? It's very highly rated. Because it's awesome. Yes. Shag off, that's why. 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? This is one of the top, most searched questions. That means more than one person asked this. Right. Is there a big spice community? What does that mean? I think, I mean, maybe they're asking about like, maybe it's parents who want to know if it's suitable for children. Say, there's no sex. Yeah, I mean. There's no curses. There's very, very little. Yeah, there's a small curse in the book, but. 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. Right. Curses once. The movie's what, PG-13? Yeah. And it is absolutely suitable for all ages. It's spicy. People like. Colors are very bright. Yes. The adventure is very spicy. There's danger. You're on it. There, you're almost there. It has a. A reverent tone. Paprika. Colored. Sequence. I don't know. What is Rocky's home star? Fortiera Donny. Ready. Fast. Easy. Ah. What species is Rocky? He's an Iridian. Iridian. Because he's from. Forty. There you go. Fortiera Donny. Chris. You're real, you're in speed round. Why. Can Rocky not see light? 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 is it unique about him? 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. Right. It's just hard to read. Very. Is that, that's kind of a poker. It's a real poker. 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 they call it. Literally. And Rylan there starts calling it Erid. Oh, it's back. He's back. I'm back. What is the atmospheric composition of Erid? It is 29 times, 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. Yes, it comes up. One more. Come on, come on. We're going to get a strike. There you go. That was fun, at least. How does Rocky. No, that was spicy. That was very spicy. How does Rocky communicate? Through basically a whale song, right? He has bladders of air that he pushes back and forth across vocal cords inside of his body. So it goes like. 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's 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. I'm sorry. How do Grace and Rocky communicate? A tonal. 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 him and play him over a speaker, which was your idea to have that be in the movie. I thought that was cool. What nickname does Rocky call Grace? Grace. Does he like he calls him an Iridani? No, he kind of gives them a very sound. Well, he's actually in his language. It's like, yeah, I think he just calls him Grace. Friend Grace or something like that. That's all I got. That's all you got. Whoa. Now that was one I put under there from before. First of all, we got them all right, except for one. I think so. Yeah, yeah. Well, what's our score? Got 100. OK, cool. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.