Nick Dillenburg shares with THR all the research he did on Neil Armstrong before filming 'Fly Me to the Moon.' Plus, he talks about how Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson set the tone on set.
00:00Did you take any inspiration from interviews with the real Neil Armstrong or anything and taking on his release?
00:30He did an incredible job in First Man and obviously this is a slightly different flair and a more colorful sort of funny flair and so there are all these things like Neil has dad bod before dad bod and dad jokes before dad jokes.
00:44He believed that you had a finite amount of heartbeats in your life and you didn't want to waste them working out.
00:49Those guys had steak and eggs before they went up to the moon.
00:54That was really the surprise of anything is just how much fun he had.
00:57You know, he loved a good Budweiser. He loved to make people laugh and he really had so little ego.
01:03So aside from all the engineering and all of the, you know, tests and everything that I wanted to try and get down with the science of really was just like a pleasure to know that he was just kind of a regular dude who wanted to have a good time and make people feel comfortable.
01:18And go to space and why not? And then the moment you get back, give credit to everybody else before you take any yourself.
01:27They really set the tone from the beginning. This is Scarlett's production company's, you know, movie as well, in addition to Apple and Sony.
01:36And from the beginning, when Channing walked in, we were doing this surprise party for Scarlett's character.
01:43We had about 150 extras who were going to be dancing for hours in this big hangar in Atlanta.
01:47And from the beginning, he walked in and started shaking hands with all these extras like, you know, hi, I'm Channing.
01:54And of course, everybody knows who you are, who Scarlett is.
01:56But from the beginning, like to be able to have that amount of fame and to be just a human being who like just wants to tell a story and like and then off camera, just like shoot the shit.
02:06And that was just what struck me from the from from the get go.
02:10He's just a guy who wants to have fun. And she and we just want to tell a great story in a light like kind of, you know, to there was a NASA historian on set.
02:20So that kept us, you know, kind of kind of straight like Neil wouldn't do certain things or say certain things.
02:25But the goal was always to just have a good time to laugh with each other.
02:29And and I think that if I could like impart anything, it's that when you when you set that tone from top to bottom and everybody's accommodating, get you a coffee, like go out, you know, we'll have a drink, whatever, like shaking hands with everybody.
02:42When that's true from top to bottom, the film is just better. It's just more fun.
02:47When Ray Romano like when you can't when you can't call action because I'm still laughing from the last thing Ray said, you're doing something right.
02:53Yeah, usually I was kept away from that person, you know, or or but but I think the NASA historians job mainly is to just protect the integrity of the of the program.
03:11And and so maybe I'm not supposed to say this, but I'll say it anyway.
03:16There was a line where I come out of the simulator and I say, and we're dead again, ran out of fuel 30 seconds before touchdown.
03:22And Channing and Ray's character say, no, it's good. We'll figure it out. It's fine.
03:26And I say, you're both terrible liars. I got to go take a leak.
03:28And the NASA story or we all, you know, sort of conferred after that.
03:33We decided decided to protect Neil's image and not talk about him going to the bathroom.
03:37So it was just little stuff like that. And it was like, you know, mostly their job was to make sure that we were wearing the Snoopy caps in the right way.
03:43That did we have the visor or it was just the helmet, but no visor as they were approaching the moon.
03:48And we really just wanted to make sure all of those technical details were correct in that way.
03:54Absolutely. And last thing, while this movie is fictional, there are people who believe that the movie ending was fixed in history.
04:01Did that have been a part of any reason why you wanted to be a part of the film or was that interesting?
04:05Yeah, I think the older I get, the more I want to just make fun of myself.
04:09And I love people who are willing to make fun of themselves, too.
04:11And I think that this movie is like a perfect opportunity for the people who believe it was real or the people to dig in in any way that they want to do it.
04:20You know what I mean? I think I think the way Rose wrote it, the way it toes that line perfectly.
04:24And with Jim Rash's character as an homage to Stanley Kubrick, I think it's just this beautiful blend of, you know, of honoring history and honoring like great figures.
04:34And all the people like Scarlett's character behind the scenes who made it possible and then yet not taking it too seriously at the end of the day.
04:40We want I think we want to bring back the big summer epic rom-com and I feel like we've done that here.
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