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Actor Ryan Gosling, who features in First Man as astronaut Neil Armstrong, says he has never got as much help on a film as he did for the Damien Chazelle directorial.
At the Venice Film Festival for the movie’s maiden voyage, Gosling spoke passionately about the preparation that went behind playing the first man to walk on the moon.
The film, based on James R. Hansen’s book, traces Armstrong’s journey from family tragedy to the moon landing and what the NASA technicians and astronauts endured along the way.
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Writer Josh Singer credited Armstrong’s family for helping the filmmakers get “underneath who Neil was”, which helped get at “the human as opposed to the icon”, deadline.com reported.
Gosling said: “I’ve never had more help in my life on a film… Whether it was Neil’s sons or his late ex-wife Janet or Neil’s sister, his childhood friends.. NASA opened the door to the facilities.
“Neil was a very famously introspective quiet humble person so the challenge was to honour that but also to create windows into what he might be or had been experiencing emotionally at the time.”
This is Gosling’s second film with Chazelle after the musical La La Land.