Meet the cast of 'Project Hail Mary': From Ryan Gosling to Sandra Hüller, and more

Andy Weir gave the world 'The Martian' and then somehow topped it with 'Project Hail Mary,' a story about a man who wakes up alone in deep space with no memory, only to discover he is humanity's last shot at survival. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the duo behind 'The Lego Movie' and '21 Jump Street', the movie is all about thrills. Now, before you book your tickets for this adventure, meet the stellar cast of the movie.

Ryland Grace is a middle school science teacher, a reluctant astronaut who wakes up millions of miles from home with no memory of how he got there or why. The wrong man for the job, and possibly the only one who can do it. Ryan Gosling plays him with the kind of disarming charm that makes you laugh one moment and completely breaks your heart the next. Few actors can move so naturally between sharp humour and genuine feeling, and this role demands both in equal measure.

Eva Stratt is the woman who decided the fate of the world and meant every word of it. Sandra Hüller plays the head of 'Project Hail Mary' who recruits Grace, bringing the same wonderfully controlled authority she carried through 'Anatomy of a Fall' and 'The Zone of Interest'. She is a woman making extinction-level decisions every single day and refusing to let anyone see how heavy that is. Hüller makes you believe every second of it.

Rocky is not human. Rocky has never seen a human. Rocky communicates through sound and operates on an entirely different understanding of the universe. And somehow, within minutes of his arrival, you completely forget all of that. James Ortiz lends his voice and puppeteering skills to the alien that Grace encounters deep in space, and what he creates is one of the most unexpectedly moving screen presences in recent memory. In a film this vast and this lonely, Rocky's arrival is the moment everything shifts.

In a story that takes place mostly in the cold silence of deep space, Steve Hatch is a reminder that there was a world worth leaving behind. Lionel Boyce, best known from 'The Bear', plays Grace's crewmember with a warmth and ease that makes every scene they share feel completely natural. The moments between Boyce and Gosling are some of the quietest in the film and some of the best.

Not every crew member makes it to the end of the story. Ken Leung as Yáo Li-Jie and Milana Vayntrub as Olesya Ilyukhina appear through Grace's fractured memories as the truth of the mission slowly returns to him. They are glimpsed rather than seen in full, but both leave a mark. The kind of characters you find yourself thinking about long after the film is over.

Mary is not a character you see. She is a character you feel. Priya Kansara voices the Hail Mary ship itself, the vessel Grace wakes up in, lives inside, and slowly comes to understand as something far more than just a machine. It is a role built entirely out of tone and presence, with no face and no body to rely on, and Kansara makes it work in a way that quietly anchors the entire film.