LONDON  –  Humour and science fiction may not seem obvious bedfellows but a history of cinema will tell you different. Think Spaceballs, Mars Attacks! and Everything Everwhere All At Once to name but a few. And now Ryan Gosling is hopping on board. The 45-year-old is both the lead actor and producer of Project Hail Mary, a space adventure film based on the 2021 Andy Weir novel of the same name. While Gosling has showcased his comedy chops in films such as Barbie and Nice Guys, he tells the BBC he’s “always struggled as an actor because I would want to bring humour to something” but has found opportunities to be funny limited with some projects. “That’s part of the reason why I wanted to produce [this film], because I felt like I needed to create an environment where these things could co-exist,” he says. Gosling says when filming previous roles “something funny would happen and they would cut and they’d say ‘oh that’s funny but let’s go again as those funny things don’t happen in life’”, but he believed this wasn’t necessarily true. The film, which is named after a last-ditch pass sometimes made in American football, centres around Gosling’s character Ryland Grace, a science teacher who through a number of extraordinary circumstances, finds himself on a spaceship with no recollection of how he got there, tasked with saving the world from sun-eating bacteria. The Canadian actor acknowledges that there is “dense science” in the film, which has just been released in cinemas, but says the overarching “humour helps move [it] along”.

“[Space] can be hard to understand but it’s important to find a way to make it accessible but also feel realistic – funny things happen in dramatic and sad situations,” he adds.

It’s a genre of movie he is no stranger to, having starred in Neil Armstrong biography First Man in 2018, whilst he is also set to appear in the upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter space opera.

“Space in general has always been interesting to me, something that I want to understand and need to feel like I do,” Gosling says.

He says he keeps going back to films that explore this area to gain more perspectives, adding: “I think I’ll make another movie and I’ll get it, but I never do so I just go back in and make another one from another angle”.

“But obviously it’s infinite and very mysterious so I don’t think I get the understanding I’m looking for but the process is really gratifying,” he adds.

The three-time Oscar nominee says he “surrounded himself with experts” on set – including astronauts, lab technicians, molecular biologists and physicists such as Professor Brian Cox. Whilst the scientific elements are somewhat complicated, trust is put in viewers to understand what is going on, which fits with the overarching theme of the film according to Gosling – “reminding us of what we’re capable of as human beings”. Positivity and problem-solving is at the heart of the film, which includes an ensemble cast of scientists working together around the world to save the sun and the rest of the universe. Gosling believes the film, which he says he created for families to watch together, provides “an opportunity to pivot away from the dystopian narratives that we’ve been saturated in for the last decade”. He then repeats the tagline he’s been using in recent weeks to promote the film: “Believe the future as something to not be feared, just to be figured out”.