One of the best things about Project Hail Mary isn’t Ryan Gosling’s astronaut Ryland Grace, but his unlikely companion, Rocky. The alien doesn’t look much like anything we’re used to seeing on screen. He’s basically a walking pile of rocks, with no recognizable face, yet somehow he becomes one of the film’s most expressive characters. And here’s the interesting part: Rocky wasn’t created almost entirely with CGI. For most of the shoot, he was a real puppet, operated by a team of puppeteers right there on set.
That might sound a little old-fashioned for a big sci-fi movie, especially one built around an alien who needs to move and react in ways that aren’t exactly human. But it made sense for this particular story. Rocky and Grace spend a lot of time together, and their friendship needs to feel believable. Having something physical in front of Gosling gave the actors and filmmakers something real to work with, rather than asking everyone to imagine the alien and hoping the computer-generated version would eventually feel convincing.
James Ortiz Had a Different Idea for Rocky
James Ortiz, who worked as Rocky’s lead puppeteer and also provided the character’s voice, explained that the original plan was to rely mainly on an animatronic version of the alien. That would have involved a complicated mechanical setup designed to reproduce Rocky’s movements. The problem, Ortiz realized, was that even an advanced animatronic might not give the character enough freedom. Rocky has to react to Grace in the middle of a conversation, pick up on his jokes and respond to whatever happens during a scene. A machine can certainly be programmed to perform specific movements, but getting those little reactions to feel spontaneous is another matter.
Ortiz suggested building a puppet alongside the animatronic, using the same basic design but allowing the puppeteers to control its movements directly by hand. That meant they could adjust Rocky’s gestures while the cameras were rolling, instead of relying on a mechanical system to do everything. It wasn’t just about making the alien move properly. Rocky needed to feel like a character who was actually there, listening and responding to Grace. That’s a big difference, particularly in a film where so much of the relationship between the two depends on how they react to each other.
Why a Real Puppet Worked Better With Ryan Gosling
A lot of Rocky’s appeal comes from the way he interacts with Grace. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes surprisingly sweet, and occasionally the two have to deal with situations where getting something wrong could mean the end of their mission. Those scenes need good timing, and not all of that timing comes from dialogue. A small movement or a pause at just the right moment can change how an exchange plays out. With the puppet, Ortiz and the rest of the team could respond to Gosling during a take, making Rocky feel less like a character waiting for his next programmed movement and more like someone having a conversation.
That flexibility mattered because Rocky isn’t there simply to provide comic relief. His growing friendship with Grace is a major part of what makes the story work, especially as the two begin to understand each other despite their very different backgrounds. The film needs us to believe that this strange, rocky-looking alien can become someone Grace genuinely cares about. If Rocky had felt stiff or mechanical in those scenes, that connection would have been much harder to sell. A puppet gave the filmmakers a way to get those small, sometimes unpredictable reactions that might otherwise have been difficult to capture.
The Scene Where the Animatronic Version Came in Handy
The production didn’t abandon animatronics altogether, though. There were situations where the mechanical Rocky was simply the more practical option. One example involved the ship’s mental health quarters, where Grace watches footage of Earth on enormous LED display walls. With those screens filling the background, hiding several human puppeteers in post-production would have been a fairly unpleasant job. Removing them could also have meant dealing with unwanted changes to the fine details of the LED images.
For those shots, the filmmakers used the animatronic version of Rocky inside his spherical enclosure. It was supported by a single cable that could be removed digitally afterward, making the setup easier to manage in that particular environment. So, while puppetry did most of the heavy lifting, the mechanical version still had its place. The filmmakers weren’t avoiding technology just for the sake of it; they were choosing the approach that worked best for each scene. In a movie about an astronaut and an alien trying to save the Sun, it turns out that one of the most important creative decisions was keeping Rocky physically present on set.
Source: SlashFilm