After three-plus months shooting one scene for the upcoming interstellar adventure, Gosling confessed he “was kind of needing company.”

Ryan Gosling’s Project Hail Mary crew made him a ‘mop friend’ named Moppy Ringwald amid lonely 100-day shoot

After three-plus months shooting one scene for the upcoming interstellar adventure, Gosling confessed he "was kind of needing company."

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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March 18, 2026 7:23 p.m. ET

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Ryan Gosling in 'Project Hail Mary'. Credit:

Amazon MGM Studios

Space is a lonely outpost — too lonely for Ryan Gosling.

The *Barbie *and *La La Land *star is currently suiting up for *Project Hail Mary*'s big blast off. The interstellar adventure stars Gosling as Ryland Grace, an amnesiac astronaut who wakes from a coma aboard an abandoned spacecraft free-floating through the universe.

Some films only get 20 days to shoot everything from the cold open to the grand finale. Others get even less. But with an estimated budget pegged at $200 million, the *Project Hail Mary *team had time to shoot a *single scene *for 100 days. It was then Gosling started to crack.

"I remember there was a scene where I had been working for maybe a hundred days or something alone, and I was kind of needing company," Gosling told IMDb on Wednesday. "So I said, 'I want to make a friend out of a mop, and I want to do the scenes today with this mop friend.'"

Gosling as Ryland Grace in 'Project Hail Mary'.

Amazon MGM Studios

That was all it took. According to Gosling, the creative crew behind *Project Hail Mary* "were on it. They both got materials, and they made this mop for me that they called Moppy Ringwald. I got to spend the day, we danced, you know."

Gosling reflected that for this reason among many, the production helmed by *Spider-Verse *directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller was special. "Not many filmmakers are going to stop everything and make a mop friend for you," he explained.

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*Project Hail Mary *is the latest big-screen adaptation of a novel by Hugo Award winner Andy Weir, who previously authored the book behind 2015's Oscar-nominated *The Martian*.

Lord and Miller tapped Drew Goddard, the same screenwriter behind *The Martian*, to bring *Project Hail Mary*'s tale of celestial estrangement to the movie house. The film costars Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, and Lionel Boyce.

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Gosling previously teased that he employed the young daughters he shares with wife Eva Mendes to fill in as the voices of the alien character Rocky on the film.

"There's some moments in the movie where I'm laughing or I'm just so charmed by him, which is like, it's actually my kids talking to me and helping me out," he explained.

*Project Hail Mary* touches down in theaters on March 20.

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Source: “EW Sci-Fi”