By James Mottram
How exciting is it to be part of a big sci-fi?
Ryan Reynolds: So far, so good. The concept and scope and scale of these movies is irrelevant to the director and creative minds behind it. You have two exceptional writers [Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote Deadpool], I can speak first hand of those guys and then a fantastic director [Daniel Espinosa] that I’ve worked with before [on Safe House]. These guys are great, they get along like a house on fire. Cast is pretty good. Feels like the UN every time we are up here, except we’re getting along.
What kind of training do you have in order to perform these kind of characters?
Rebecca Ferguson: Mission: Impossible for me.
Ryan: I was just born for it. [laughs] It’s a humble way of saying no. You do a lot of training, a lot of harness work and wire work; everything that makes you look like you are floating in space, so it’s been an athletic event. This is the first time we’ve ever been in the same room, so expect anything.
Rebecca: We have a lot of movement where we’re not on wires, and we have to move as if we’re actually in space with zero gravity.
What are the biggest challenges of working in such confined sets?
Ryan: In the set we’re shooting in right now, one of the cast members could die and they’d still be standing up [laughs]. Everybody’s in this one little room, banding together, and then you’re called into action. We all have to be weightless, because you’re in a G-less room, and then suddenly there’s this elegant dance of sliding past one another seamlessly.
Was one of the attractions doing a space movie that is incredibly realistic and not some kind of fantasy thing to get into the nitty gritty and feel like what it might actually be like in space?
Ryan: Sure, I mean, just having that idea that you’re up there with sort of a family. I like the idea that hierarchies dissolve because there’s just a small amount of people up there, you have to become a family whether you like to or not. Everybody comes in with a very specific point of view and mission, and the dialogue is sort of running together, and people are talking over each other, much like a family does. I think it requires the audience to lean in to the action as opposed to us just spewing it at them in obvious broad strokes.
You don’t have a lot of technobabble in the script?
Jake Gyllenhaal: I feel like the legitimacy comes when you have human behaviour and actual knowledge about a certain subject, as opposed to these broad strokes. I feel like what we’re trying to go for is something real, where things are always changing because Daniel’s allowing that based on our relationships, how they present themselves when we’re actually together as actors in a room.
Ryan: Daniel listens to the movie. He doesn’t go “Oh, in the pages are this and this.” He watches, sees what’s happening and adjusts; the movie morphs and changes.
Jake: Absolutely. That is what I think is what so many movies feel like – at least that I see; a lot of people trying to conform to some kind of Wizard of Oz idea, like a lot of executives in a room saying it must be like this. And Daniel’s trying to create something where the reality that’s being created by us is not being determined by someone who’s not here. We’re determining that direction.
Rebecca: Also what’s interesting is that balance of – even though we are experts in all our different areas – when expertise goes over the threshold into human instinct. What is your behaviour when you are either threatened or scared or the balance of that, that’s also what makes it very, very real. Where your expertise is better than my expertise, and what is escape or your survival?
Jake: What’s the psychological part of the thing we’re interacting with, how do we affect how it behaves? So often in movies like this what happens is it’s just that we’re dealing with the simple subject of good and bad and here it’s we determine how it behaves without really knowing. So, look, learning about it throughout the journey, learning about one’s self, does that make sense?
Rebecca: We never know the consequence of anything, do we?
Do you think you can tell us about your individual characters as well, what your role is in the crew?
Jake: I play a doctor. His name is David Jordan, and he has been up in the International Space Station for the longest of anybody, and I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say… I’ve actually taken my grandfather; he was a doctor, surgeon, and he’s been through a lot of traumatic situations as has this character, so I’ve drawn a lot from my grandfather actually. He’s a nice inspiration for me. He died a year ago, so it’s nice to be up with him in space, a little bit.
Ryan: I play Rory Adams, I’m an engineer slash sort of mechanic and I specialise in space walking, so adjusting, fixing, the Canada Arm of the things that are attached to the ISS. So I work in Canada [laughs].
Jake: I’m a doctor, I fix only Americans…
Ryan: Yes, exactly… go down guys! Uh, I’m sort of the guy who’s a little bit more of a sceptic. I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor, I’m not somebody who’s in a position of power. I’m just a guy that has some slight creeping dread about what’s going on: why we’re up there, what this mission’s about, not from an ethical standpoint, just a more primal standpoint.
Rebecca: I’m Miranda North. Control Disease Expert, is that it? Is that what it’s called? CDE. Woo. And I’m Swedish. I think what my friends [writers] Rhett and Paul would say, I’m the crosser of the T’s and the dotter of the I’s. I make sure that Earth is protected from whatever we find and maybe vice versa.
You mentioned wirework. How does it work?
Ryan: First it works by crushing disappointment. You show up and you think, ‘confined space, this will be a cinch.’ And then they jam this harness on you, which, I don’t know about the girls, but the guys it puts your testicles in your throat and then you perform as though you’re weightless and effortless in the next hour and a half. So yeah. The other day I sneezed and I’m actually now neutered.
Did any of you speak to other actors who have been in similar projects? For example, did Matt Damon from The Martian give you a quick call and tell you how he coped?
Rebecca: He said, “Good luck.”
Ryan: I know Sandra (Bullock) from Gravity was on the set briefly and it was interesting because it’s a lot like this. It’s a biggish kind of movie and there’s a small crew and it’s intimate and that was the thing that blew me away coming here. We’re all on intercoms so we can hear each other talk all the time, no matter where we are. And you know, that’s the thing that blew me away. She said it was intimate.
Going out to space, would it freak you out? Would you do it?
Jake: I hope so. I can try. You know, I’ve watched so many documentaries on people who actually go out there and yeah, it’s awe inspiring, but it’s also unfathomable. It’s that space between waking and sleeping where you know, and so personally, honestly, I don’t know if I have the courage but conquering fear, that’s what courage is. I mean, it’s interesting.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jake: But I’d say right here, right now, probably not.
Ryan: What if it was really comfortable, like Latina first class, right?
There are so many great films set in space. Did you have any films that you thought of as space thrillers?
Ryan: Oh God, I mean, no, there’s nothing. I’ve known Daniel for nine years and I know him really well. There was nothing that he said “watch this before.” He didn’t do anything obvious like “you have to see this movie.” Something crazy, like Alien.
Rebecca: Which one?
Ryan: Alien. She’s never heard of it. She’s Swedish. He [Daniel] trusts in his actors.
Jake: Again, he brought in experts to make an environment where it feels all real. I don’t think there’s cinematic references of “watch this.” There was a little bit of looking at things, what it was really like to be floating in space, and what movies can do and can’t do, where something works and where it doesn’t. The nice thing is that there’s an evolution in terms of technology. So we’re in a space role where, particularly for the crew, it has been worked through a number of films.
Rebecca: Sometimes watching non-space related films, finding…
Ryan: There’s Something About Mary.
Rebecca: Yeah, that’s the one.
Life is in cinemas from March 23, 2017.
