‘Project Hail Mary:’ Yes, That Was Really [Redacted]

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s “Project Hail Mary” is about many things.

It’s about a middle school science teacher (Ryan Gosling) who is tasked with saving the world after a weird organism starts to eat away at our sun, threatening all life on Earth. It’s about finding optimism in dark times and figuring out solutions to even the most impossible problems. And it’s about how existential threats can bring people together and trust – for once – in science.

It’s also, as Lord has joked before, about how hard it is to make a friend as an adult.

In the case of “Project Hail Mary,” though, that friendship is between the aforementioned science teacher and a bizarre alien species who doesn’t have eyes, has five limbs and who communicates through a series of musical notes. Gosling’s Grace dubs him Rocky, both because he is made of a rock-like material and because he really likes the Sylvester Stallone movies.

As you can imagine, it’s an uneasy friendship, particularly in the beginning when they are figuring out how to communicate. While Grace eventually discovers a way to translate Rocky’s vocal “notes” into English words, it starts off as pantomime and lots of confusion. When he finally gets his translation program working, Grace goes through a few possible “voices” for Rocky, before landing on a final version – that of actual Rocky puppeteer James Ortiz.

This sequence leads to one of the very best jokes in the movie – and one unexpected cameo.

We would suggest a light spoiler warning if you want to continue; this doesn’t ruin the movie by any stretch of the imagination but it could lessen one of the movie’s bigger comedy moments.

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As Grace toggles through pre-programmed voice options, he stops on one that sounds an awful lot like Oscar-winning screen icon Meryl Streep. After he plays a brief clip of her voice, Grace remarks, “She can really do anything.” Huge moment. But we wondered – was it really Meryl Streep or some kind of AI trickery?

“It’s a crazy joke to write, right? Because you’re like, Okay, if this works, someone’s going to have to make a really weird phone call,” said Lord.

“We were throwing a lot of stuff at Ryan on that day – we’d be like doing different voices ourselves, having crew members do voices,” Miller explained.

Among those throwing out voices on the day was the movie’s stunt coordinator (who got a very big laugh from Gosling) and Gosling’s children, who were visiting the set that day. Yes, that is very adorable.

“Everything was a surprise,” said Lord.

One of the things they threw out on the day was Meryl Streep.

“Then we had to ask Meryl Streep,” Miller said. “Thankfully, Amy Pascal, our producer on the movie, had done ‘The Post’ and many, many movies with her. We’re like, ‘Amy, you’ve got to ask her.’”

“She procrastinated for about a year,” said Lord.

“Finally, we said, ‘If she’s not going to do it, we have to figure out something else for the moment.’ Finally, she said yes, and she did many different versions. She was like, ‘Let’s do more. Give me a line read.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not going to give Meryl Streep a line read,’” said Miller.

“She was in a booth and we were on Zoom. When she asked to give her a line read we said, ‘No, I’m sorry,’” said Lord.

Sadly, they cannot remember the origin of Gosling’s “She can do anything” line. If that was a pitch or something that Gosling came up with. Either way, it’s one of the funniest moments in a very funny film. Thank God Streep said yes.

“Project Hail Mary” is in theaters now.

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