UNIVERSAL PICTURES Presents
In Association with DREAMWORKS PICTURES and PERFECT WORLD PICTURES
A TEMPLE HILL Production
A DAMIEN Chazelle Film
RYAN GOSLING
CLAIRE FOY
JASON CLARKE
KYLE CHANDLER
COREY STOLL
PATRICK FUGIT
CHRISTOPHER ABBOTT
CIARÁN HINDS
OLIVIA HAMILTON
PABLO SCHREIBER
SHEA WHIGHAM
LUKAS HAAS
ETHAN EMBRY
BRIAN D’ARCY JAMES
CORY MICHAEL SMITH
KRIS SWANBERG
Executive Producers
STEVEN SPIELBERG
ADAM MERIMS
JOSH SINGER
Produced by
WYCK GODFREY, p.g.a.
MARTY BOWEN, p.g.a.
ISAAC KLAUSNER
DAMIEN CHAZELLE
Based on the Book by
JAMES R. HANSEN
Screenplay by
JOSH SINGER
Directed by
DAMIEN CHAZELLE
Production Information
On the heels of their six-time Academy Award®-winning La La Land, Oscar®-winning director DAMIEN CHAZELLE and star RYAN GOSLING reteam for Universal Pictures’ First Man, the riveting story behind the first manned mission to the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the decade leading to the historic Apollo 11 flight. A visceral and intimate account told from Armstrong’s perspective, based on the book by JAMES R. HANSEN, the film explores the triumphs and the cost—on Armstrong, his family, his colleagues and the nation itself—of one of the most dangerous missions in history.
Chazelle’s interest and stories continue to focus on the cost of achievement…and whether or not excellence is worth the price for those who reach. Just as he reimagined the discipline of mentorship on the road to mastery in Whiplash—and deconstructed the movie musical in La La Land—Chazelle now challenges expectations of what a “mission picture” should resemble. Discovering First Man alongside numerous collaborators, Chazelle approaches the film from interior angles in order to immerse audiences in this impossible journey.
Portraying the passionate, indomitable, unsung hero Janet Armstrong is CLAIRE FOY (Netflix’sThe Crown)—Neil’s wife and the woman who helped make these times monumental. Although she assumed she’d build her life with someone with an adventurous disposition, Janet grapples with the sacrifices they’re asked to make in this unexpected journey into history. While Neil travels to the heavens to deal with their shared grief of unthinkable loss, Janet must handle the Earthly business of being the backbone of the burgeoning space program. One of the most public faces of NASA families…she led a private life of wondering if she’d chosen this path to shape history…or if fate had done so for the Armstrongs.
Gosling and Foy are joined on screen by an accomplished troupe portraying the men selected for the Gemini Program alongside Armstrong—JASON CLARKE (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Ed White, PATRICK FUGIT (Gone Girl) as Elliot See, ETHAN EMBRY (Netflix’s Grace and Frankie) as Pete Conrad, PABLO SCHREIBER (STARZ’ American Gods) as Jim Lovell, CHRISTOPHER ABBOTT (HBO’s Girls) as David Scott, COREY STOLL (Netflix’s House of Cards) as Buzz Aldrin, SKYLER BIBLE (Socially Awkward) as Richard F. Gordon, and SHEA WHIGHAM (Non-Stop) as Gus Grissom.
Playing the men in command of these early missions are KYLE CHANDLER (Game Night) as Director of Flight Operations Deke Slayton and CIARÁN HINDS (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) as Bob Gilruth, the first Director of the Space Center. They are joined by LUKAS HAAS (The Revenant) as command space module pilot Mike Collins and CORY MICHAEL SMITH (TV’s Gotham) as Roger Chaffee, Grissom and White’s fellow ill-fated comrade on the Apollo Command Module, which was destroyed during a pre-flight test at Cape Canaveral. Also joining the performers is OLIVIA HAMILTON (La La Land) as Pat White, who serves as a daily reminder to the closely knit neighborhood of the real threat they’re all facing.
Written by Academy Award® winner JOSH SINGER (Spotlight, The Post), the epic drama of leading under the pressure of grace and tragedy is produced by WYCK GODFREY & MARTY BOWEN (The Twilight Saga, The Fault in Our Stars) through their Temple Hill Entertainment banner, alongside ISAAC KLAUSNER (Love, Simon) and Chazelle. STEVEN SPIELBERG, ADAM MERIMS and Singer executive produce, while DreamWorks Pictures co-finances the film.
For First Man, Chazelle reteams with familiar faces from his La La Land creative crew. They include Oscar®-winning director of photography LINUS SANDGREN (American Hustle) and brilliant costumer MARY ZOPHRES (True Grit), as well as Academy Award®-winning editor TOM CROSS (Whiplash) and Oscar®-winning composer JUSTIN HURWITZ (Whiplash).
Chazelle collaborates for the first time with lauded production designer NATHAN CROWLEY (Dunkirk, The Greatest Showman), in addition to Oscar®-winning visual effects supervisor PAUL LAMBERT (Blade Runner 2049, The Huntsman: Winter’s War).
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
First Man:
Uncovering a Private Life
Based on James R. Hansen’s book “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong,” First Man reveals intimate insights into the global hero’s private life and previously unknown character-defining moments. After receiving a PhD in the history of science and technology from Ohio State and spending more than 20 years writing and teaching about space and history, Hansen set out to write his first biography. It was in the year 2000 that the author first reached out to Armstrong and requested to tell the hero’s tale. After two months, Armstrong—who rarely agreed to interviews, much less entertained the idea of a lifelong documentation—politely declined.
It would be some time after Hansen’s initial request before the pilot gave the go-ahead to pen his biography. “It took about two years for me to finally get the greenlight from him,” reflects the author. “Neil’s family encouraged him to do it. The crucial moment came when he invited me up to his home in suburban Cincinnati—where he had lived for about 20 years—and we spent the afternoon in his study talking for hours. I felt very positive, but even after this meeting it took some time for him to fully get on board.” Hansen saw the duality of his subject as a fascinating one. “Neil could be in a cockpit making instantaneous decisions but when it came to other things about his life, he was amazingly cautious and deliberate.”
Long prior to his in-person introduction to Armstrong, Hansen had conducted hundreds of interviews for other subjects; it was that experience taking oral histories that aided in gaining Armstrong’s confidence. “One thing that became important with him was his developing trust in you,” Hansen explains. “Not only did we grow up 50 miles from one another—he grew up in Ohio and I grew up in Indiana, and went to school at Ohio State—but both our families had also grown up on farms. In a lot of ways, we spoke the same language, in terms of regional dialect. What we know of Neil is as this one dimensional, iconic symbol…but he was a living, breathing, three-dimensional human being.”
It was crucial to the production team not simply to tell a story about a hero of whom we’ve seen many pictures and interviews, but to explore what drove him, his family and colleagues at NASA to accomplish the unthinkable. “This is a story about how hard it was, how much of a risk it was, how dangerous it was to all of those men,” says First Man executive producer Adam Merims. “Neil started out in the Korean War as a pilot and then became a test pilot for the Air Force, then ultimately for NASA. At that time test pilots would die with alarming frequency, so many people in the early part of the story in his life were killed; yet Neil stayed true to his path and achieved what was previously considered unachievable.”
Armstrong developed a close kinship to the author of his biography, who serves as a co-producer on the film, and that indeed allowed the production to move forward. “Neil had a great relationship with Jim Hansen, and he felt very comfortable with the idea that Jim had captured in his book—and what he had hoped to convey,” says First Man producer Wyck Godfrey. “Neil thought that as long as we followed the blueprint that Jim provided, he was comfortable with us moving forward with making this film.”
Although known for being a very private person, after meeting the filmmakers, Armstrong agreed to a movie adaptation of his life. Fortunate to have been introduced to Armstrong before he passed away on August 25, 2012, Godfrey explains that there was no way to make this film without his blessing. “It was a gratifying experience to be able to meet him,” states the producer. “Neil was very open to the idea of making a movie about his life. If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”
Bowen recounts the day: “I met him with his second wife at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles, and he was going to be getting an award the next day. It didn’t become intimidating until you shook the man’s hand; he had this incredible grip. As you started to talk, you realized he still knew so many details about that experience.” The producer saw that interesting duality in Armstrong about which so many comment. “He managed to warm the room up because—in the middle of talking about these very complex things—he had a wonderful, wry sense of humor and kept us on our toes. He was an incredible man.”
Known by the public as a reclusive individual, Neil Armstrong was so much more in the eyes of his family and the people who held him close. Younger son Mark Armstrong hopes the film brings to light the person his father truly was. “I hope people see him as a man who was faced with very difficult circumstances,” says Mark Armstrong. “A lot was asked of him, and he did his best to do the right thing. That was always his mantra: to take each situation and find the right way to handle it.”
“He was just kind of a regular guy,” adds Mark’s brother, Neil’s elder son, Rick Armstrong. “For those who just saw him on the news might not know that, but he was a pretty funny guy, too. When you saw him around his friends, he was a completely different person than his public image. I’m hoping that the movie will help bring that out.”
Seeking the Brave Few:
Damien Chazelle Joins
Although producers Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen had been developing First Man for some time, it would not be until they met Oscar®-winning director Damien Chazelle that the final pieces would fall into place. This was after the period in which Chazelle created Whiplashand during pre-production of La La Land. Relays Godfrey: “We told Damien about the character in the story, and he fell in love with it and came aboard to help us. From there, it all moved quickly.”
Alongside his fellow producers, Chazelle would seek out Oscar®-winning screenwriter Josh Singer to craft the screenplay. Chazelle was struck by Singer’s singular take on the protagonist’s arc, feeling their writer instinctively got what was most fascinating about their hero. “Damien wanted to treat the story like a thriller,” Godfrey notes. “He wanted to defy expectations about what it took to successfully land a man on the moon, and put you in the shoes of what it would have been like at the time—with all of the technological barriers facing these guys.”
Chazelle’s request of the team was to ensure that anything seen on screen was authentic to the time period and these brutal missions. Months before pre-preproduction began, he and his collaborators were workshopping scenes, spending time with the Armstrong family, as well as others who understood this story intimately.
His fellow producers agree that Armstrong’s reality was more terrifying than fiction. “That goes to the aesthetic of the film,” reflects Bowen. “We’ve all seen films that are done in space, and when you think of space you think of technology, computers, digital formats and computer graphics. Damien’s goal was to try to make this as visceral as possible, and in order to do that the film had to feel as analog as possible. The challenge of this film, the thing that is so exciting about it, too, is how do we put an audience in that cockpit? How do we make them really feel—not just see, but feel and witness this incredible accomplishment?”
A common refrain heard during pre-production and shooting was ‘we have computers in our pockets that are more powerful than the ones that got us to the moon.’ “We forget that when they were trying to put a man on the moon, we didn’t have the technology we had today,” Bowen says. “We hoped to put the audience through that experience and show the detail that was required by thousands of people working toward one goal. If any of them messed up, it would end in failure.”
Chazelle’s fascination with the messiness of mastery drew him to Armstrong’s story. As well, his interest in injecting into a massive period movie—one filled with action set-pieces—a genuine sense of raw spontaneity felt like a natural evolution. While the director admits that type of filmmaking is usually impossible within the constraints imposed by scale or big technical effects, he felt that a tight collaboration with Gosling—extending to their bond with their fellow production team—would make it feasible.
“Before I began work on First Man, I knew the textbook narrative of the mission to the moon—the success story of an iconic achievement…but little else,” Chazelle says. “Once I started digging, I grew astounded by the sheer madness and danger of the enterprise—the number of times it circled failure, as well as the toll it took on all involved. I wanted to understand what compelled these men to voyage into deep space, and what the experience—moment by moment, breath by breath—might have felt like.”
Intrigue of the fascinating details and by Armstrong’s instincts drove Chazelle to dig deep and research. “To grasp, I had to explore Neil’s home life; this was a story that needed to hinge between the moon and the kitchen sink, the vast expanses of space juxtaposed against the textures of quotidian life,” he continues. “I chose to shoot the film in vérité, playing fly-on-the-wall to both space missions and the Armstrong family’s most intimate, guarded moments. My hope was that this approach could highlight the heartbreak, joy, lives lived and lost in the name of one of history’s most famous goals: setting foot on the moon.”
Although the director initially saw the movie as documentary in style, Gosling pushed him to take that term more literally. TheFirst Man star asked his director to present a full picture that would capture every little detail, as well as all the in-between moments, that led to the moon landing. Sums Chazelle: “Ryan pitched it as ‘the kitchen and the moon,’ which in turn became the mantra I used to describeFirst Manto every department head, every craftsperson and performer in the film.”
Known for developing historically ignited and riveting scripts including Spotlightand The Post, when he was commissioned to pen First Man, Oscar®-winning screenwriter Josh Singer went to work researching a new kind of hero. The writer describes his process: “I was able to dive in and do more and more research with the family, with the astronauts—with people like FRANK HUGHES, who was a Gemini and an Apollo trainer and who is incredibly knowledgeable. This is what I love to do as a screenwriter: thoroughly immerse myself in a world and learn as much as I can…and then try to put that on the page.”
Singer admits that he was fascinated by just how relentless Armstrong was in pursuit of a signature goal. “He can fail and fail and fail and he’s going to get back up again and again and learn from his failures, which is also the NASA program,” he offers. “If you look at his career, even as truncated as it is in the script, you know the X-15 has its problems; Gemini VIII had life-or-death problems, not to mention the LLTV he had to eject from.” He pauses, thoughtfully, “Given the trials he faced, he doesn’t sound like the ideal person to land on the moon. But when you think about it, those trials made Neil exactly the right person to land on the moon.”
After delving into the challenges Armstrong faced and discovering profound details about his life, Singer was confident there was a cinematic story to be told. “The individual who survives these difficult events and gets stronger and can move on…who is that guy?” he asks. “It struck me that this was ultimately a movie about sacrifice and grief and the wounds we bear. How do we get past those wounds and carry on? What does it take to be able to do something as incredible as what Neil did?”
Singer found a curious definition of this pioneer through his choice of careers. “There is an expression that engineering is the obviation of failure—meaning that what an engineer does is test and test and test and find where something fails and fails…so that then it succeeds. If you look at Neil’s career, he was always pushing up against failure, and then moving forward and succeeding,” recounts Singer. “What we wanted to get at is that this is very hard. When you lose a buddy, it’s not just something you look at your watch and go fly again. You lose a buddy, and it hurts. You lose a daughter, and it’s the worst thing in the world. The real strength is being able to move on, even though you have wounds and that pain. The real strength is failing, and picking yourself back up.”
Although the outcome of the Apollo 11 moon landing is well known, the rigorous and dangerous steps leading up to the mission—as well as the endurance and determination of the man who took the first step—are to most, a mystery. “For the most famous event in world history, it’s shocking how little known the particulars of the event actually are and how little is known of the man who took those first steps,” says Chazelle. “It blew my mind that an event of this magnitude hasn’t been portrayed in a feature film before. We want to emphasize how scary it was to go up into space; it literally was like a rickety tin can or a coffin.”
The director’s goal is to give audiences a firsthand perspective of what it required to train for this type of mission, as well as be the one inside the first cockpits of this type. Alongside Singer and Gosling, Chazelle was inspired to capture just how visceral, difficult and terrifying this journey was…as well as the sacrifices required to become the first man on the moon.
“There are many other stories that tell about the moon landing, but I wanted to know what it felt like in all the years leading up to that first footstep on the moon—as well as what it felt like to be that man who put the first footprint on the moon,” says Chazelle. “Only a handful of people in history have ever gone to the moon, and Neil Armstrong was first. Even more importantly, it’s an emotional story of a guy who’s trying to be a father and husband while undergoing this cosmic journey.”
It was key for the filmmakers to expose the man who left the first footprint and reveal the truth behind his private persona. “One of the many challenges of trying to figure out how to do this story justice was that Neil was a very soft-spoken character who refused to conform to classic hero tropes,” shares producer Isaac Klausner. “He didn’t give a lot out emotionally; he was very reserved to the public. It was a big puzzle to figure out how to get real access to Neil and the way to tell the story…where you feel like you learn something about this man without betraying who he was.”
With the support of the Armstrong family, Chazelle, Singer and the producers went to work bringing the American hero’s story to the big screen. The film, which spans from 1961 to 1969, gives audiences a clear vision of what happened behind the walls at NASA—as well as a look inside the notoriously private Armstrong’s personal life.
It was crucial for the team to note that, although he was deeply serious about his work, Armstrong had a sharp sense of humor. “He was great with his kids,” offers Godfrey. “There’s an aspect to him that we hope to reveal and convey—one of a fully rounded human being. The pressures during this decade were extraordinary, yet he kept his head down. It took that kind of perseverance and dedication to accomplish what he ultimately did. Damien has always been focused on obsessive characters, and you find in his movies a level of intense obsession that is very captivating from a dramatic standpoint.”
After the passing of Neil Armstrong in 2012, the support of his family on this project was paramount. “I met with Josh Singer back in 2015 once I knew that he was working on this movie,” says Rick Armstrong. “I wanted to see what approach they were going to take to decide whether or not this was a movie I wanted to be part of or not. I was impressed with the amount of research that Josh has done and the commitment to accuracy,”
After discussions with Chazelle, the Armstrong sons had the confidence to move forward. “I subsequently met Damien, and the same thing was true; that would be a real important thing for Dad,” adds Rick Armstrong. “The fact that they wanted to try to make as accurate a movie as possible was a good thing. So, we wanted to make sure they had all the information they could get to be able to do that.”
Gosling as Armstrong:
The Performer Boards
Although Gosling and Chazelle collaborated extensively on La La Land, their pre-production and duration-of-photography work on First Man—extending to its postproduction—was on another level. “Ryan and I have more than simply an ‘actor-director’ relationship,” says the director. “That’s what accounts for the documentary feel of this film. When I first discussed First Manwith him, I saw it as a ‘mission movie.’ He’s the one who interpreted it as a story of grief.”
It wasn’t simply the two weeks of pre-shooting rehearsals with Gosling and the actors portraying the Armstrong family, it was the number of scenes for which director and star would come up with scene improvisations together. Chazelle ended up shooting many of these sequences, and it turns out that multiple scenes made it to the final print of the movie.
Chazelle was very impressed by what his star contributed creatively. “Ryan found ‘Lunar Rhapsody,’ the theremin track Neil loved—and one that he played during the Apollo 11 mission,” Chazelle recalls. “Plus, he discovered, ‘Egelloc,’ a musical that Neil wrote in college, as well as one of his interviews about the Earth’s atmosphere—which became the basis for a speech that Josh wrote for Neil.”
His producers knew Gosling could deliver the intense focus and quiet ferocity required of the first man to set foot on the moon, but they were surprised by how seemingly effortless it was for their star to embody a complex subject. “What struck me about Neil was how reserved, restrained, and un-showy he was,” explains Chazelle. “He was not the prototypical cowboy or fast-talking pilot. He was a man of very few words—the quiet person who sits in the corner but who immediately takes gauge of everything: the smartest person in the room.”
Chazelle’s partnership with Gosling during La La Landallowed him to experience the actor’s range, especially his deft sense of underplaying a scene. “Neil always insisted there was nothing special about him,” continues Chazelle. “He said he was just one of many, and circumstances enabled him to be the first man on the moon. There was this normality to him, and Ryan’s style is so subtle that he was able to do justice to that.”
Perhaps one of the toughest critics of the production was one of the few people on Earth who knows the most about Armstrong. Fortunately, Gosling passed muster with Hansen. “I can’t think of another actor who could do it better than Ryan,” praises the author. “Ryan has some of the same introspective, cerebral, quiet, modest qualities that Neil had. But at the same time, he is a brilliant actor who can also take the Armstrong character and—through his own understanding of who Neil was—bring out elements of Neil that we might not have seen unless you were really close to him.”
Hansen proved an invaluable resource to Gosling as he prepared for the role. “Ryan met Neil’s sister June after I explained how important she was to my understanding of Neil’s character, especially the effects of his little girl’s death,” shares Hansen. “Ryan sat in the same farmhouse that I interviewed Neil in and spoke to June and with one of Neil’s boyhood friends. He listened to stories, asked questions, and has met Neil’s sons, along with other family members. He has fully immersed himself in this role. He’s certainly done his homework, and through the brilliance of his acting he’s going to bring Neil Armstrong to life.”
It was the intersection of Chazelle’s take and Hansen’s book that intrigued the actor. “I think as soon I learned what the moon was, I learned that somebody named Neil Armstrong walked on it,” Gosling says. “He was synonymous with the moon but I realized, after reading James Hansen’s book First Man,that I knew very little about either one of them. On an emotional level, I was surprised to learn just how much loss Neil and his wife Janet experienced before and during those historic missions. On a practical level, I don’t think I fully appreciated how dangerous those missions were. How claustrophobic and frail those space capsules were: how primitive the technology was by today’s standards.”
As was his director, Gosling was drawn to just how difficult Armstrong and his cohorts’ world was, and the tireless work it took to accomplish this juggernaut achievement. “I’ve always been interested in the extremes of a story,” he states. “What is unique to this story for me is just how extreme those extremes can be. I can’t imagine a greater duality than that between the intimacy and singularity of the Armstrongs’ personal life and the infinite nature of space that it’s intertwined with. These astronauts were using their comparative flashlight of scientific knowledge to contend with the infinite mysteries of the universe and, at the same time, taking out the trash and mowing their lawns back on Earth.”
Time and again, Gosling has proven his commitment to his art—as seen in his preparation for his Oscar®-nominated role in La La Land, when he learned to play the piano in just three months. Likewise, during his preparation for his role in The Notebook, Gosling spent two months soaking up the culture of Charleston, South Carolina, and, just like his character, actually learned to build furniture.
In First Man, Gosling proves his dedication in time spent studying to portray the global icon. For the production team, director and star are inextricably linked in their shared passion for perfection. “Ryan has a commitment to doing excellent work,” sums producer Bowen. “He is keenly aware of the legacy he’s leaving behind and often, likeminded people find one another in material that they can connect with. It makes sense that Ryan and Damien want to work together. When you watch La La Land, the character that Ryan plays is someone who’s obsessive about his craft…because Ryan’s obsessive about his craft.”
Gosling brings a special something to his roles, commends Bowen. “It’s his humanity. It’s his understanding of sentiment…and not sentimentality. So often people want to overwhelm you with their emotion. It’s the truly great craftsmen who know how to dispense it in a way that keeps you leaning in.”
The respect for the production’s leading man extended to the countless crew members and support team who worked with Chazelle and Gosling during the shoot. Frank Hughes, who served as a Gemini and Apollo astronaut trainer, trained Gosling in a manner similar to how he worked with Armstrong back in the 1960s. “Ryan is dedicated to his craft,” offers Hughes. “I’m amazed. We would spend time just looking at the control panels of the Gemini, and in starting out with the Apollo, and going through and learning every switch and its purpose. He’d get inside the cockpit and I’d show him where hands would be, where his eyes would scan when he’s assessing a situation.”
Gosling admits that becoming Neil Armstrong would have been impossible without the help of numerous collaborators. “I was very privileged to meet with Janet Armstrong before she passed away. I was also very fortunate to talk with Neil’s two sons, Rick and Mark, and spend time with Neil’s sister, June, at their farm in Wapakoneta, Ohio, where Neil was born. The Armstrong Air & Space Museum, and both NASA’s Cape Canaveral and Houston facilities, opened their doors to me. There were also experts on set daily to advise on the specifics of every mission we were trying to replicate. I also had almost constant access to author James Hansen and his book First Man; a work of more than 700 pages of meticulous research. I’ve never had so much help researching a role or been involved with so many people who were so enthusiastic and happy to provide it.”
Gosling’s fascination for Armstrong and the men who were his cohorts permeated the production. “My first instinct in preparing for this role was to learn how to fly. Neil was flying before he could drive; it seemed an integral part of who he was, so I thought I should start there. At a certain point in my training, I was asked to force the aircraft into a self-imposed ‘stall,’ and I had a moment of clarity. This was a terrible idea. I understood in that moment why Neil was destined to be one of the world’s greatest pilots and why I was not. Like many other astronauts, Neil began as a test pilot. It takes a certain kind of person to knowingly get into an aircraft that has never been flown and take it to its breaking point, for the sole purpose of finding its flaws so that we might move our understanding of aeronautics forward.”
One of Gosling’s biggest fans on set was the actress who plays his on-screen wife. “Ryan is warmth personified,” sums Claire Foy, who portrays Janet Armstrong.
