{"id":377592,"date":"2026-04-02T03:27:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/377592\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T03:27:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:27:20","slug":"project-hail-mary-rocky-actor-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/377592\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Hail Mary: Rocky Actor Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s been an out-of-this-world past few years for James Ortiz<\/a>, the New York theater artist and puppeteer behind Rocky, the lovable alien at the center of Project Hail Mary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tOrtiz spent months on a London set working opposite Ryan Gosling, providing the voice and overseeing the puppetry for the rock-like alien, who is on a mission to save his home planet\u2019s star when he meets Gosling\u2019s Ryland Grace, who is on his own mission to save the Earth\u2019s Sun.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe friendship between the two is the heart of the movie, which has passed $322 million globally, making it the biggest hit of the year to date<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite Hail Mary<\/a> being a $190 million production with action and spectacle, filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller asked Ortiz and Gosling to improvise long takes, almost like it was a theater production.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSometimes, it was 45-minute takes of just us playing stuff,\u201d Ortiz says.<\/p>\n

\n\tOrtiz landed the role after a chemistry read with Gosling in Los Angeles, in which he was given a puppet to work with. But at the last minute, he asked to use his own, smaller puppet he\u2019d brought with him for the audition, as he felt he could better deliver what they needed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLater, Phil and Chris said it felt very Rocky for him to kind of be so bossy,\u201d Ortiz says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\n\tGosling has been an A-list star for twenty years and was coming off his Oscar-nominated role in Barbie. But despite the star wattage, he quickly put Ortiz at ease.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRyan has a really arresting quality of really looking you in the eyes and really talking to you,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two had an early phone call after Ortiz landed the part, where he promised that despite the challenges of puppetry, he would over-prepare so that when the cameras were rolling, they could play and not be hindered by the technical details.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI said, \u2018I want us to improvise, I want us to make each other laugh, let\u2019s have as much fun as possible,\u2019\u201d recalls Ortiz. Gosling was game.<\/p>\n

\n\tOrtiz worked with special effects artist Neal Scanlan to build Rocky and held auditions to find other puppeteers to help him operate the five-limbed puppet. (He appropriately dubbed these collaborators the Rocketeers.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter six weeks of preparing in London, Ortiz arrived for his first day of filming. Emma Thompson happened to be on set to visit Lord and Miller, producers of her upcoming movie The Sheep Detectives. No pressure, it\u2019s only a two-time Oscar winner watching your first day on a movie set.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI felt like I was sort of patting my head and rubbing my belly every day,\u201d Ortiz says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat day, they shot a scene that didn\u2019t make it into the movie, in which Gosling\u2019s Grace is attempting to get some sleep on his ship.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRocky just can\u2019t stop talking to him. And Ryan tries to explain what dreams are to Rocky, and it\u2019s such a sweet moment,\u201d says Ortiz, who imagines it will make its way to the deleted scenes for home entertainment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe days were so mentally exhausting that he often would go to bed when he wrapped, though he\u2019d spend his days off exploring London. After six months abroad, his time on the project ended and he returned to New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe initial idea was that Rocky\u2019s voice would later be replaced with another, more famous actor. But after principal photography wrapped, Lord and Miller kept sending Ortiz requests to record additional lines of dialogue for test screenings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd then finally, I just got a text from Chris who just basically said, \u2018We really want to do this with you. Why don\u2019t we formally talk about it? Let\u2019s get you into an ADR booth so we can clean up all of these random clips from both your phone,\u201d recalls Ortiz.<\/p>\n

\n\tSays Miller: \u201cThe idea of hiring an actor to come and imitate what really happened on set and the little nuances that were happening seemed like a crazy proposition. He did such a good job and he really was Rocky. That really became a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdds Lord: \u201cIn animation, you say \u2018you never trace a drawing.\u2019 It\u2019s like it loses its life \u2014 that moment when it gets created is the thing you want to capture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, about half of what you see in the movie is the puppet, and half is animation for moments the puppet couldn\u2019t perform (such as Rocky rolling around in his hamster-style ball, with Framestore providing the animation.)<\/p>\n

\n\tOrtiz has seen the movie four times in theaters with audiences, including renting out a theater for friends.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey were basically going, \u2018James, that\u2019s you. Because Rocky maybe aren\u2019t that different at the end of the day,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJames Ortiz<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAllegra Messina<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s possible that Rocky could live on. Hail Mary author Andy Weir is toying with sequel ideas, and multiple sources have told THR<\/a> a sequel movie is not out of the question.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut for now, Ortiz lives on with the memory of one of his final scenes on set \u2014 when Rocky and Grace say goodbye.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe farewell scene is very much just Ryan and I trying stuff,\u201d says Ortiz.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy this point, Gosling and Ortiz had accumulated many moments together that they could call back to, such as when Rocky was unable to discern between a thumbs up or a thumbs down.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there was something the team had wanted to try but never found the right spot for.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere was a design on Rocky\u2019s inner forearm that we hadn\u2019t used yet. Phil and Chris had designed all of these tattoos and carvings all over them that meant different things,\u201d says Ortiz. When Rocky grazed one of them with a leg, it would make a musical sound.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn one of the very last takes of the day, Miller suggested saying goodbye using that. It worked, and Sandra H\u00fcller\u2019s Eva Stratt even imitates it back on Earth later in the movie.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t imagine doing it another way,\u201d Miller says of working with Ortiz. \u201cRyan always had a scene partner and had someone to talk to and react to. There were all these happy accidents that happened along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMiller, Lord and Ortiz on the set of Project Hail Mary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJonathan Olley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been an out-of-this-world past few years for James Ortiz, the New York theater artist and puppeteer behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60,169054,83643],"class_list":["post-377592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-ortiz","tag-project-hail-mary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}