Ryan Reynolds teams up with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson in Life, a science-fiction adventure directed by Daniel Espinosa, that focuses on the dynamic between the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) after they discover what could possibly be the first proof of life on Mars. A chat with Reynolds on the mind and mechanics of Life, currently playing in a plex near you.
What can the audience expect? Is Life going to be scary?
(Laughs) I think the audience is going to be terrified and intrigued with Life. It’s one of those things that for a great film to work really well, and to fire on all cylinders, I think you have to have both of those things. It’s one thing to make an audience terrified but you also need to make them really lean into the screen because they are so intrigued by what’s going on, and we get to do both of those things with Life.
Are you a fan of the science- fiction genre?
Yeah, I am a fan of science fiction. I am when it feels authentic and it feels kind of messy, as life often is. I like it when it draws you in and all the characters aren’t typical and you really get to experience and invest in this family up there, which is what they are in our movie, and that pulls you in. I love science fiction all the way back to Alien (1979) and I just watched 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) again and that is such a mind****! So yeah, this is a genre that I’m a huge fan of. I can’t think of many movies in this genre that I don’t end up going to the movies to see.
A huge part of the story is the psychological impact on the group when things begin to go wrong...
Yes, there’s a psychological shift within the group. It’s one thing to be on the ISS doing your job, everybody getting along, and then it’s another thing when you discover something that is revolutionary and it’s about how everybody interprets that information in a different way and how everybody feels about it. And it’s under those stressful circumstances that all of that comes out and you start to see the push-pull dynamic between each cast member and you start to see each person have a very clear and different idea and take on what’s important and how they can handle the situation. And that’s what you want out of any ensemble cast.
If you were to describe the film to somebody who knew nothing about it, what would you say?
I would say it’s a story about survival in the truest context. Most stories about survival pit two opposing forces against each other and typically there’s a light cast on each, one is good, one is bad, but what I loved about Life is that there’s an interesting shade of grey cast on everything.
Halfway through the film I don’t think we have any idea about who is good and who is bad, including the life form we have discovered. That life form is simply utilising every aspect of its being in order to survive. And what’s more dangerous on this planet than a bunch of human beings? So there’s an interesting moral complexity that imbues itself into the story quite quickly and I think that’s what makes for an interesting film. I don’t want to just see a bunch of intermittently jaw-clenching astronauts who are heroic trying to fight this bad, evil thing from another planet. It’s much more complex than that and I think the audience is really going to have a chance to decide how they feel about it. It’s very cool.
What’s your character Rory Adams all about and why is he up on the ISS?
Rory’s job sounds a little more glamorous than it is. He’s a space walker. He goes out and fixes anything on the ship. He’s basically a mechanic and the ISS needs a mechanic just like a car does. He’s like a handyman, the guy who fixes everything. He doesn’t have an incredibly important role in terms of being one of the doctors or the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) guys or the commander. He’s a utility crew member and he is there for one reason alone, which is to make sure the ship is running.
But you’d want the guy who can fix things to be in the crew wouldn’t you?
You’d think, but he’s also not necessarily the guy who is reacting from an emotional place. He’s probably reacting a little bit more from a logical place, which is ‘How do I fix this? How do I put this back together?’ So in a certain sense his skills aren’t necessarily pitch perfect for the situation at hand.
And so the premise is that this alien life form is discovered on Mars and brought back to the ISS for examination in a controlled environment?
Yes, that’s exactly right. My character catches the Rover in space using what you might call a space arm and brings it in and they are able to bring it in through the various firewalls and study it in a very controlled environment and really see what they have. And part of the spike and exhilaration in the film comes with just that — the fact that this is the first time we have ever had the opportunity to investigate life beyond our own planet. It’s just a single cell organism when they find it and it’s incredibly thought- provoking and obviously the movie takes an incredible tonal shift shortly after that.
How was it working on real sets as opposed to using a lot of green screen?
You know the detail on those sets was incredible. The production designer (Nigel Phelps) really spent painstaking hours — he probably never slept! — and recreated the ISS on that set. So the ISS isn’t this futuristic perfectly groomed ship... there are elements of it that are a little junky. The crew is very international but so is the ISS because different parts of it have been built by different countries at different times so you will go through one capsule and you’ll feel like you are in the early ’90s and you’ll zip into another one and you’ll feel like it’s 2030!
The producers have talked about the idea of this story being rooted in a ‘What if?’ reality. It’s set in the ‘near future’, and as you have said, authenticity was one of the watchwords. How important was keeping it real for you?
The realism is really highlighted by the familial bonds that these guys have. We are allowing the audience to see it as we are seeing it, which I think is a great way to tell the story and we certainly give the audience emotional investment. The audience is on the ride with us — they are not just watching us, they are discovering things as we are discovering them. We don’t go into great detail about every little thing we are seeing, we let the audience discover that for themselves.
You had experts on set — there was movement coach Alex Reynolds to give advice on how to move in zero-gravity.... So how important was that to give authenticity to your performance?
You want it to feel immersive and you want it to feel like the audience is experiencing something they don’t quite understand and one of those things is being in zero-gravity and weightlessness throughout the entire film. I can’t think of too many movies that have ever done a film in zero-gravity from start to finish, but this is definitely one of them.
What was it like working with Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and the rest of the team?
I can’t remember ever having this much fun on a set. I find that sets that have a comedic tone are typically quite serious because you are focused on manufacturing a reaction in the audience and with movies like this I find you spend a lot more time laughing simply because you’re trying to not focus too much on all of the information that you need. I think Jake and I collectively wasted probably a good million dollars of the bosses’ money just laughing! He and I would be on the ISS at a 90-degree angle laughing so hard that we couldn’t breathe. And there’s something pretty great about that.
And Rebecca is such an incomparable actress in what she is able to say and convey. Her character has a real conflict that she is dealing with throughout the film. I would say that the central female character is really the heartbeat of the whole film. She really has to carry a whole burden that none of the other cast members have to. And she is so good… she is such an intelligent, emotional and smart actress.
Life was a built-in family for me — I had a director that I knew already and worked with in the past and writers (Rhett Rheese and Paul Wernick who also wrote Reynolds’s Deadpool) that are like my brothers and then Jake, who has become one of my closest friends since shooting. And getting to be there with those guys was a complete pleasure through and through.
