‘Project Hail Mary’ author Andy Weir talks Ryan Gosling, making science entertaining

We took Andy Weir to a science museum and watched him nerd out with an astrophysicist and about making \

NEW YORK – I should’ve known bringing Andy Weir to a science museum was like bringing a kid to a candy store and asking them to keep their hands in their pockets.

Days before the movie “Project Hail Mary” comes out, the sci-fi author and I meet at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The adaptation of Weir’s 2021 novel stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, the former middle school science teacher and sole survivor of a last-ditch effort mission to save humanity from sun-eating microbes. 

The book may be dense with what Gosling calls “space math,” but even the right-brained find something to love through blood pressure-raising mission and a loveable craggy alien, Rocky. 

Therein lie Weir’s hallmarks as a writer – hard math, humor and high stakes. Before his first novel, “The Martian,” found a home at Penguin Random House in 2014, he self-published it on his blog for free. Now, Weir’s novels have a cult following of science nerds and casual readers alike. I can confidently say I’ve never seen another book read as widely on the New York City subway system as “Project Hail Mary.” 

“I thought I was writing for this niche audience who wanted to see the math,” Weir tells me. “I thought I was writing for 0.001% of people, but it turns out that lots of people enjoyed it. They would just kind of like skim the math. They’d be like ‘I believe you.’”