Project Hail Mary's Harry Styles Song Presented A Huge Challenge For The Directors

This article discusses a minor plot point in "Project Hail Mary."

Partway through "Project Hail Mary," there's a needle drop that might make you gasp — and no, it's not "Two of Us" by The Beatles. It's "Sign of the Times" by Harry Styles, a hit from the British superstar's eponymous 2017 album and one of his biggest singles. So was it challenging for directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to get the rights to this song? Yes, especially because this scene — which was almost cut but performed well with test audiences — took shape very quickly.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Brian Hiatt asked Lord and Miller if there was a "licensing scramble" to use this song, and apparently, that was the least of it. "The funniest one ever," Lord revealed. "We were [filming] in a little country town in England, and people are making calls like, 'When does L.A. wake up?'"

Not only that, but Miller noted that Sandra Hüller, the Oscar-nominated actress who performs the song in a karaoke scene, needed time to practice — so they kept pushing the scene to try and make it work. They also had a plan if they didn't get cleared: a public domain song "as a backup." As Miller said, though, "Our music supervisor got us most of the way there that we felt confident enough."

Hüller confirmed this sequence of events in Entertainment Weekly, saying she checked with her daughter to make sure the song was "actually cool" before agreeing. Her daughter said yes, and as Hüller recalls, "I asked if we could get the rights to this song, and [producer] Amy Pascal got the rights, and then we shot it the next day." As it happens, Hüller also chose the song, so if you think about it, this scramble is her fault entirely.

As Brian Hiatt noted in the Rolling Stone interview — and as Sandra Hüller confirmed to Entertainment Weekly, but I'll circle back to that — it was star Ryan Gosling's idea for Hüller to sing at all. The karaoke scene in question sees Gosling's Dr. Ryland Grace and Hüller's government official Eva Stratt out with a group of astronauts and scientists willing to sacrifice their lives to save Earth; despite her seemingly cold exterior, Eva ultimately joins them and performs "Sign of the Times." According to Christopher Miller, the whole thing came together in just 36 hours.

As Miller told Rolling Stone, after Gosling cooked up the idea, they had to make sure Hüller would even do it. Once she agreed under the condition that she got to pick the song, they were off to the races. "So the creativity of Ryan going, 'Isn't it crazy that we have a person with the voice of an angel, who we have this karaoke scene, and it's about how she can't be part of it? Wouldn't it be great if she did sing?'" Miller revealed. "And then the creativity of Sandra to pick that Harry Styles song where the lyrics were so poignant for the moment and be able to do it without much preparation at all."

Oh, one more complication: the other actors in that scene didn't know Hüller was even going to sing. "We didn't tell them. So they were really surprised for real," Lord said to Brian Hiatt. "And then we went back and altered that scene and made sure that Ryan's character challenged her to sing, so that it was accepting a dare." Turns out, that "challenge" was real.

In that Entertainment Weekly article, Ryan Gosling directly said that he overheard Sandra Hüller idly singing to herself while they were filming on an aircraft carrier and was absolutely stunned. He then asked if she could sing in the film, to which Hüller, according to Gosling, said, "I don't know."

Gosling was persistent, apparently. "And I was like, 'Please, we're doing a karaoke scene. Please, please sing.' She said, 'I'll think about it,'" Gosling said. "So she showed up. She had picked this Harry Styles song. She came in, she smashed it, and it was a perfect song choice as well because it ends up becoming part of the trailers and the whole spirit of the movie." 

Gosling is absolutely right. Despite the shocking third-act twist regarding Hüller's character Eva, it's the most humanizing moment for Eva in the film, and Christopher Miller said as much in EW. "We were like, well, yeah, actually it would be a great way to express that she has to keep a distance as the boss and can't get too invested, but it could be a way for her to show some empathy for the rest of the crew," he said of the scene. Lord had his own take, naturally: "It's very messed up to ask an actor, certainly someone of her caliber, to add a musical number two days ahead of the time we had to shoot it."

Messed up or not, this scene made it into the movie and made the film — pun intended — really sing. "Project Hail Mary," one of the year's biggest blockbusters so far, is in theaters now.