Actors Who've Played Astronauts in Movies
To infinity … and the set! Space movies have captivated audiences by giving them a glimpse into life beyond Earth, but they need strong lead actors to helm the journey.
Many stars have portrayed astronauts in films over the years ranging from fictional space explorers to historic figures. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney teamed up to play astronauts Dr. Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalsky, respectively, in the 2013 film Gravity. The fictional thriller, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, follows Ryan as she goes on her first space mission. However, disaster strikes when their shuttle is destroyed and the pair are stranded deep in space.
The production of the film required Bullock to be placed inside a giant, mechanical rig for up to 10 hours a day. Bullock had to communicate with everyone on set through a headset, a setup which she told Variety in 2013 affected her mental health.
“I was angry at everyone who came up to me with a laptop to tell me where my hand had to be and where my head had to end up within a certain amount of time,” she said at the time. “It was my job, with all of these constraints, to figure out how to be this person. I cut off all my sounds with ear wigs and the headpieces so I didn’t have to be aware of the technology that was happening around me.”
Ryan Gosling portrayed real-life astronaut Neil Armstrong in the 2018 film First Man. The actor explained to GQ magazine in October 2018 that the film wanted to focus on the opposite natures of exploring space while still having a domesticated life back home.
“We were so interested in the duality of their lives,” Gosling explained. “How these astronauts were using their flashlight of scientific knowledge to explore the vast mysteries of space, and at the same time, they would have to come home and mow the lawn and take out the trash. We had this term for ourselves: ‘the moon and the kitchen sink.’ And I think that was something we really tried to understand, what those extremes might have been like—and to honor that.”
Scroll down to see more actors who have portrayed astronauts in films.
The 1998 film starred Willis as a deep-core driller who, along with his astronaut team, attempt to prevent an asteroid from colliding with Earth.
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Pratt starred opposite Jennifer Lawrence in this 2016 film about two people asleep in suspended animation on board a space ship, who are awakened 90 years too early when their ship malfunctions.
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Eastwood starred as an ex-test pilot sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite in this 2000 thriller.
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This 2002 film — based on the science fiction novel of the same name — follows Dr. Chris Kelvin (Clooney) who is on board a space ship orbiting the planet Solaris, where he begins to question his own beliefs.
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Mark Watney (Damon) gets left behind by his fellow astronauts on Mars in the 2015 sci-fi thriller.
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McConaughey is an astronaut in a dystopian future who travels through a wormhole near Saturn in this 2014 film.
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Pattinson plays Monte, a criminal sent into space to extract energy from a black hole, in the 2018 movie.
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Gosling donned a spacesuit in the 2018 biopic to portray the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
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Rockwell plays an astronaut who has been mining helium-3 on the moon for the past three years.
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Bullock starred in the 2013 movie alongside Clooney in his second space-themed movie.
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Weaver starred as Ellen Ridley in the lead role of the iconic 1979 thriller, where her character is forced to battle a space creature on board her ship.
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Hanks played real-life astronaut Jim Lovell in the 1995 film, which is based on the true story of a NASA mission to return a space ship and its passengers back to earth.
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