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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Tuesday 23 OcTOber 2018
For the 'First Man' team, their mission was to get it right

By LINDSEY BAHR or this was superhero busi-
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mak- ness," Singer said. "No, this
ing a movie about Neil was an ordinary American
Armstrong may not neces- guy and his ordinary Ameri-
sarily be on par with, say, can wife trying to make
successfully landing on the it through this incredible
moon but the pressure in- challenging moment."
volved isn't a giant leap A key factor was getting
from that either. the support of Armstrong's
There are astronauts who sons, Rick Armstrong and
were there, for one, in Mi- Mark Armstrong, who were
chael Collins and Buzz Al- always available to Singer
drin, in addition to all the and Gosling and anyone
people who were on the else who had any ques-
ground at NASA ready tions, about them, their
jump on any inaccuracies. mom (who is played by Brit-
There's the near-mythic ish actress Claire Foy) and
weight that that achieve- their dad.
ment of being the first man "One of the biggest chal-
to walk on the moon holds. lenges of the film was
For film fans, there's the knowing they were going
"2001: A Space Odyssey" to see it in the end and
factor. And then there's they weren't going to see
the fact that Armstrong, This image released by Universal Pictures shows Ryan Gosling in a scene from "First Man." a film about historical fig-
who died in 2012 at age Associated Press ures, they would see their
82, while a stickler for facts, parents and themselves,"
didn't like to talk much in "First Man," now play- movie treatment of space of people who helped Gosling said. "It was also an
about himself — even to his ing nationwide, with Ryan and the greatest possible make it possible," Gosling invaluable asset to have
own family. Gosling in the lead role. version of that, you're never said. them there. I can't really
But it was a challenge direc- He wanted to strip away going to beat that," Cha- "I don't think it was just to imagine doing it without
tor Damien Chazelle ("La the glossy romanticism zelle said. "(We thought), be evasive, I feel as though them."
La Land") and screenwriter from early space travel could we do the docu- he had this incredible abil- Rick and Mark Armstrong
Josh Singer ("Spotlight") and make it about the real mentary version of that? ity to see everything within were relieved that the film-
were willing to take on. men, with real families, and Could we do the gritty, its larger context. He could makers cared about accu-
Chazelle envisioned a doc- the very real danger of this camera on the shoulder, 16 see one giant leap in a racy (technical and emo-
umentary-style approach dream to go to the moon. mm, cinema verite version small step." tional), and helped provide
to telling Armstrong's story "If '2001' is the grand movie- of space and make it feel They weren't flying blind, crucial details for one of
like D.A. Pennebaker had either. They had James the film's most heartbreak-
crawled into the capsule Hansen's official biography, ing scenes, when Neil Arm-
with the astronauts?" "First Man: The Life of Neil strong tells his young sons
To achieve this goal, pro- A. Armstrong" to work from, that there is a chance that
duction designer Nathan but there was a lot of sifting he might not survive. But
Crowley ("Dunkirk") and his that needed to be done to they're most excited about
team built full-scale repli- find the story. audiences getting to see
cas of capsules from Gem- "The good news with Jim something else — their
ini and Apollo missions, the is the book got everything dad's humor.
X-15 aircraft and the multi- right. The bad news is it's a "He was a pretty funny guy
axis trainer — practical sets little encyclopedic," Singer and I was really glad that
so Chazelle could put his laughed. "It's not the easi- that came through," said
star, camera and the audi- est read." Rick Armstrong. "He had a
ence right in the claustro- So Singer set out trying to very dry wit."
phobic action and shake distill and dramatize (but As Gemini and Apollo train-
them all a little while space still accurately depict) a er Frank Hughes described
imagery played outside the seven-year period, starting it to Singer, "if you weren't
windows on LED screens. with the death of Neil and paying attention, you'd
"Contrary to what you Janet Armstrong's 2-year- miss it."
might think it was fun," Gos- old daughter Karen, and One of the funnier scenes
ling said with a chuckle. ending with the moon land- wasn't even initially in the
Beyond the physical chal- ing. Singer realized that film. It was Gosling who
lenges of the role, Gosling tragedy surrounded Arm- stumbled on the fact that
had to also embody the strong. He'd lose a number Armstrong was a fan of mu-
man, without much to work of friends and colleagues in sicals and even wrote one
with. a short period of time, from in college. He asked Singer
"Even though it was hard to plane crashes to the Apollo why that element wasn't in
learn personal things about 1 fire, and have a few near- the script. After 10 minutes
him, I respected it every death experiences himself, of writing, it was.
step of the way. He was the including the less-remem- "I felt like it helped add
most famous person on the bered Gemini 8 mission. color to a person who was
planet and somehow man- "We're trying to puncture very, very layered and
aged to keep the focus on a narrative that's been complicated and fascinat-
the missions themselves, on around NASA for a long ing and was too humble to
the hundreds of thousands time that said this was easy share that," Gosling said.q