Project Hail Mary's Rocky Actor Was 'Hellbent' On Nailing One Aspect Of The Movie [Exclusive]

The bulk of Phil Lord's and Christopher Miller's "Project Hail Mary," based on the book by Andy Weir, details the relationship between the human scientist Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and an intelligent alien engineer that he has nicknamed Rocky. Rocky was so named because he looks like a four-foot stone tarantula. In order to better communicate, Rocky is vocally synced with a computerized translator that turns his alien chitters into English. Rocky's voice was provided by actor and puppeteer James Ortiz.

Ortiz's excellent puppeteering work, paired with his deadpan line deliveries, gave Rocky a lot of the character's recognizable human qualities. By the end of the film, Grace and Rocky don't just work well together, but have become friends. It's the central relationship that assured "Project Hail Mary" is, as /Film's review called it, one of the best sci-fi movies ever. 

/Film's Ben Pearson recently spoke with Ortiz for an exclusive interview, and the actor revealed that Rocky's human qualities were vitally important to him. In Ortiz's words, "I was really hellbent on making sure that Rocky just wasn't a punchline or a sidekick."

Indeed, Ortiz said that when he saw an early cut of "Project Hail Mary," he felt it wasn't explicit enough that Rocky was learning and growing thanks to his relationship with Dr. Grace. There needed to be a little something extra to communicate that Rocky had his own character arc instead of just being a mere sidekick. In the interview, Ortiz recalled a very specific moment near the film's end where he and the filmmakers collaborated on the best way to express Rocky's humanity. The first pass, he said, wasn't quite right. But he had a brainstorm later on that put a perfect button on a key scene.

Anyone who has seen "Project Hail Mary" can attest that James Ortiz was certainly successful in making Rocky a fully realized character. He most certainly wasn't a sidekick. 

Ortiz talked about a scene near the end of "Project Hail Mary" wherein Dr. Grace is packing his bags on his spaceship while Rocky looks on. Both of them know that Dr. Grace is going to have to sacrifice his life in order to complete the movie's central space-faring mission. While recording ADR (additional dialogue recording), Ortiz reviewed a scene in which Dr. Grace storms out of the room, unwilling to have a conversation about his impending mortality, and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller implored Ortiz to say something as Rocky to make Dr. Grace stay. Ortiz remembered what he said and how it didn't immediately work: 

"[O]n the day, I'm sure I said something. In fact, I think it made it into one of the trailers: 'Rocky will not watch Grace die,' something like that. And it was something that was more emotional, which didn't feel right for the operating system of [Rocky's voice]."  

Remember, Rocky is being translated by a computer, so Ortiz had to find a balance between Rocky's actual emotions and how a computer would translate his words. It sounds tricky, and it was. Ortiz even admits losing sleep over the matter, saying that, "It was one of those things where you're just staying up and you're not falling asleep and you're still ruminating." But then, he explained, he had a catharsis in the middle of the night and unlocked the right way to play the scene.

James Ortiz described his "ah ha!" moment like this:

"I kind of sprang out of bed at three in the morning and I said, 'What if it's this?' I texted Phil and Chris immediately, and I said: 'Earlier he says, "Could not fix." What if here, we say, "Grace say Grace will die. Rocky fix?"' The value of that, because he talks about, 'Rocky could not fix,' is that it does a couple of things which made me so happy."

The first of those things, Ortiz said, was that it showed that Rocky had moved from a place of mourning and pain to a place of wanting to help his friend. It showed that Rocky had a moment of emotional consideration. "[I]t also was sort of simple enough to make [Grace] turn back into the room," he added.

Ortiz became self-aware during his interview, recognizing that describing his process might be considered "boring acting stuff," but immediately noted, positively, that the makers of "Project Hail Mary" were always open to the aforementioned sorts of exchanges. They were encouraged to brainstorm on the day, improvising and improving as they went. "And that doesn't normally happen on a job like this," he said, "where you're a puppet in a film who normally shoots for three days and that's it."

"Project Hail Mary" truly is one of the best films of the year, and you should watch it immediately. It's currently available on Prime Video, Fubo, and Philo. It's not likely that Ortiz will be nominated for an Academy Award for his performance — the Academy seems reticent to award voice acting — but he certainly deserves one.