00:00When you were pitching this to your publishers,
00:01you said, hey, I got an idea for a guy
00:03who's kind of trapped in space by himself,
00:05and he's got to, like, science his way out of it.
00:07At any point, did they say to you,
00:08dude, you already wrote this book?
00:09Yeah, you already wrote that.
00:10Um, well, I mean, I pitched it to him as, like,
00:13I've got a first contact story,
00:15and interstellar travel, and stuff like that.
00:18And, you know, he's not alone.
00:19Was there a debate about whether or not to reveal
00:22the alien in the movie trailers and things like that?
00:24There was.
00:25So how did that go, and how do you feel about
00:27that they did reveal him?
00:28So, there was a lot of discussion about that,
00:30because, of course, in the book, it's a complete...
00:32I had no idea. I literally screamed at the book.
00:35Yeah. And that was the intent.
00:37We wanted you specifically to scream at the book.
00:39Perfect.
00:39But, um, that was a big twist,
00:42and the readers are very good about not spoiling
00:45things for each other, moviegoers or not.
00:47Like, moviegoers will tell each other everything.
00:50And also, like, if we hid the fact that Rocky
00:54was in the movie, I mean, sometime, I mean, by now,
00:58everybody would be talking about there's an alien in this movie.
01:00Like, it would be general public knowledge.
01:03So we thought, uh, that plus, hey, this isn't just a story
01:07about some schlub out in space by himself.
01:09This is a story that includes an alien
01:11and all sorts of really cool stuff,
01:13and that we want to draw people into the theater.
01:16Things get a lot more interesting when they find out,
01:19okay, there's an alien in this one.
01:21And it's not like a little green man alien.
01:23It's basically an anthropomorphized rock.
01:25So I was trying to avoid anything that looked like,
01:28you know, just a human.
01:29Not getting your Cap'n Kirk vibes.
01:31No, no, no.
01:31I wanted an alien that was very, very alien.
01:34And so I wanted his environment to be incompatible with ours
01:38and vice versa.
01:39I mean, shoot, that happens on Earth.
01:41Like, if you exchange the positions of a shark and a camel,
01:44they're both going to die, right?
01:46And so...
01:47I don't know a lot about science, but I know that is true.
01:49You know that is true.
01:50There are very few aquatic camels.
01:52To our detriment.
01:54So which comes first when you're writing?
01:56The science or the plot?
01:57Um, usually the science.
01:58In this case, I'll figure out something that I want,
02:01and then I'll kind of back-calculate a way to allow that
02:05and try to find the minimum little violation
02:07of, like, real-world physics or whatever.
02:10Do you check your math?
02:12Do you, like, send this stuff out to people?
02:13Okay.
02:14Well, no, I don't have other people check my math.
02:15You check your own math.
02:16I check my own math.
02:17And sometimes I make mistakes,
02:18and that's the way of things.
02:19There are no lives riding on the line here.
02:21It's just a fictional story.
02:22If I mess up, I mess up.
02:24I'm a former White House correspondent,
02:25foreign affairs correspondent, and in D.C.
02:27There is a book...
02:27I'm a big step down.
02:29No, this is incorrect.
02:29Big step down.
02:30This is incorrect.
02:31This is the interview I've been looking forward to most for a week.
02:34There is a book club of all former or current White House producers and correspondents in D.C.
02:40It's all women. We do not read sci-fi. We read, like, smart fiction, sometimes less smart fiction.
02:45Usually it's a way to escape the news cycle and drink some wine and talk about our families.
02:50Someone suggested this book. It was a bit out of left field. My group chat is blowing up this morning
02:56with questions for you because they are all completely obsessed with this.
03:00Did you know this was going to have such an appeal to folks who aren't necessarily into sci-fi?
03:04Well, I always try to appeal to people who aren't necessarily into sci-fi.
03:08I don't go out of my way. It's just my mechanism of storytelling is to try to make...
03:14I mean, yes, it's a science fiction story, but it's really a story about friendship and loyalty to newfound friends.
03:21And so I guess my brand or whatever it is, I sell optimism and, like, I have in real life
03:31a very high opinion of humanity.
03:33And I feel pretty good about the human species and that I think we're pretty awesome.
03:38And, yeah, so I think that ends up having an appeal to a lot of people.
03:43You don't have to be obsessed with science to enjoy these stories, I hope.
03:47I did get some other questions from my book club.
03:50Um, one was, did you visualize Ryland being as hot as Ryan Gosling?
03:55I did not.
03:56Okay.
03:57Um, to be fair, though, I don't have a very visual imagination at all.
04:00I heard you talking about this.
04:01This is really interesting to me.
04:03Yeah.
04:03So I'm kind of on the aphantasia scale, which means, like, when I try to visualize something, I get more
04:07of a blob.
04:09Um, I mean, it's not...
04:10But how does that work when you're writing?
04:13It's conceptual.
04:14Like, so in my mind, what I'm seeing is a concept, like a blob of a person talking to a
04:19blob of another person in a sort of a blobby, undefined background.
04:23The best way to describe it would be is if you've ever had a dream and, you know, the focus
04:27of the dream is you talking to the, you know, to the magical cat or whatever's happening in your dream.
04:32The background, like, describe the background.
04:35It's like you didn't define it in your head.
04:37And so you can't really tell me what's in the background.
04:39It's just sort of this blobby.
04:41There's something there.
04:42But for me, it's also in the foreground.
04:44It's just this concepts.
04:46I mean, I personally like that about your writing because it allows the reader to kind of fill in a
04:51bunch of those details, which is why I think we were all so interested in seeing Rocky, the alien, because
04:57I had a really hard time picturing what that looks like.
04:59I could tell you, oh, he has a pentagonal thorax, kind of, and he has like five legs and they
05:04each end in three claws.
05:05But I don't know, like, if his limbs were skinny or thick or if they're smooth or bumpy or if
05:11they're symmetrical or asymmetrical.
05:13So when I went to the model shop during the shoot, when I went to the model shop and saw
05:18Rocky, that was like the first time I'd seen Rocky.
05:21It was like, oh, I get it.
05:23Oh, so that's what Rocky looks like.
05:25Now I know.
05:25That's incredible.
05:27And you and I were talking briefly earlier.
05:28It seems like Rocky might be getting better VIP treatment than you on the press tour.
05:33Do you want to explain what you were saying to me earlier about who gets the nicer hotel suite?
05:38Yeah.
05:38For our viewers who don't know, Rocky is, it's a practical effect.
05:41So it's a giant, like, puppet that's operating.
05:43I love practical effects.
05:44Yeah.
05:44It's as practical as it gets.
05:46I mean, there's CG, like, smoothing of the motions some and, like, some of the finger movements and stuff like
05:51that.
05:52And there's plenty of CG shots, let's be clear.
05:54And also the digital removal of all the sticks and puppeteers and things.
05:58But, yeah, so at the junket, the media junket for this, which was in L.A., I was like, I'm
06:02feeling good about this.
06:03They got me a real nice room, you know.
06:05It's kind of a suite.
06:06Having your moment.
06:07Yeah.
06:07I'm an important guy.
06:08And then, like, Rocky's room, because they had a room for Rocky where, like, reporters could go, like, talk to
06:17Rocky and stuff like that.
06:18Rocky got the presidential suite on the top floor.
06:21It's a penthouse.
06:22So I go up to Rocky's room and he's got a grand piano in his room, stuff like that.
06:27And, I mean, the reason is because they really wanted high security around that puppet.
06:34It's an irreplaceable prop.
06:36They just didn't want you feeling too good about yourself, your big climactic career moment.
06:39Yeah, and Rocky gets the presidential suite.
06:41I just thought that was funny.
06:43Finally, you said you're optimistic about the human race.
06:45And one of the things that, I also read The Martian, love The Martian.
06:48One of the things that I think was so interesting about this book is initially your main character is kind
06:53of a weenie.
06:53He really, he doesn't want to do the thing.
06:56They make him do the thing.
06:58And the arc of his personal growth over time in the book is quite incredible and redeeming.
07:03Is that kind of what you're hoping for the rest of us?
07:06There's no deeper meaning.
07:08I just wanted to.
07:09So I'm always trying to work on my character depth, complexity, and nuance because I think that's my weakest part
07:16of writing.
07:17I'm good at the science.
07:18I think I'm good at coming up with interesting and compelling plots.
07:20But it's my characters that I really need to, like, level up on.
07:25But I would argue that's where this book really stands out.
07:27Because that's how I put a lot of work into it.
07:28So I appreciate it.
07:29And so I wanted to have a flawed but likable character.
07:33And I think we've all felt that way before.
07:35We've all felt, like, scared, overwhelmed, and underqualified.
07:38I mean.
07:39Every day, man.
07:40Every day.
07:40As a writer, that's your whole life.
07:42I mean, you know, give a man a book, you entertain him for a night.
07:45Teach a man to write, you give him crippling self-doubt for life.
07:47Oh, God.
07:47That's so true.
07:50So I wanted to make him relatable.
07:52And then he has a redemption arc.
07:53And, yeah, so that was deliberate.
07:56I'm glad it landed.
07:57Anything else you want to add about humanity, space?
08:00I'm a fan of both.
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