00:03Hi, this is Mariah Gullow from The Hollywood Reporter, and we're in studio today with Ari Handel and Darren Aronofsky.
00:10Thank you very much for being here, gentlemen.
00:12Thank you for having us.
00:14You guys are the executive producers of One Strange Rock on Nat Geo.
00:20So the first question I wanted to ask you is, who was the first astronaut you ever encountered in your
00:27life?
00:28Who was the first one you saw?
00:29Actually, the first one was probably...
00:33Apollo, for me.
00:34No, Buzz.
00:37Why, did you meet Buzz?
00:38Yeah, at some event somewhere he got used to.
00:41Oh, that's pretty cool.
00:42But the first one I met was Jeff Hoffman I met for this.
00:47But really, we got to meet eight here.
00:50So it was like a full-on blast of astronaut power.
00:54I met Apollo, who shot original footage for us on the space station.
01:00I didn't actually meet him, but I got to talk to him on the phone and then do some email
01:05conversations with him.
01:06But it was exciting because we got to shoot original footage for the show on the space station.
01:12Amazing.
01:13And the kind of visual language that the rest of the show was shot in.
01:18And I'd say the coolest...
01:20Well, I mean, they're all amazing.
01:23But, you know, hanging out with Peggy, who has been in space for 665 days.
01:29And I like to call her the real-life Ripley, as in from the Alien movies.
01:33Because she's the person you want to defend us from aliens invading.
01:37Getting to hang out with her has been great.
01:40Wonderful.
01:41What is it that all of these eight astronauts have in common?
01:44Or are there any common misconceptions that this show kind of clears up about astronauts?
01:49I think one thing that I was surprised is how they're not jet pilots.
01:55Yes.
01:56And they're not the right stuff version.
01:58But they really are a whole varied group of people with varied backgrounds.
02:02Biologists, doctors, engineers, and yes, jet pilots.
02:06NFL players.
02:08And then despite that breadth of experience and background,
02:13then there's this commonality that they all share from this experience of going into space.
02:19And what it does to them, the way their different relationship to the planet,
02:24their different relationship to life support,
02:28different relationship to time on the planet,
02:30the sunrises and the sunsets that they see, 16 of those and we see one,
02:34all those things are different and it lets them see the whole intricacies of the Earth
02:39in a special way, in a new way, and changes them.
02:41It doesn't matter if they've been in space for eight days like May or 665 days like Peggy.
02:47They all kind of have this transformation.
02:50Yes.
02:50And we talk about on the show, it's called Cosmic Consciousness or the Overview Effect.
02:54And it's basically seeing the Earth as one system.
02:58Something we all kind of understand and get, but it's very easy to forget in our daily lives
03:04of carpooling and taking kids all over and doing whatever other stuff we need to do around the home.
03:10So remembering that this is one house, that we all share Mother Nature,
03:15is something they get to witness firsthand.
03:17And I think the show, One Strange Rock, tries to capture that feeling and remind us all of what's going
03:24on.
03:25And one of the ways it captures the feeling is with the amazing footage.
03:29Can you tell me a little bit about where all of the different footage came from?
03:34We shot for 100 weeks, 145 countries, six continents, the hottest place on the planet,
03:40the coldest place on the planet, up on the space station.
03:45So we had six different crews going on at once at all times.
03:50So a tremendous, tremendous smorgasbord of incredible places on the planet.
03:57And that was kind of the initial pitch where all of these cool things that are going on
04:01that you've never seen before.
04:02So it's very much like looking through an episode or an issue of National Geographic, the magazine,
04:09how you can see snapshots of different places in the world and different scales.
04:14Sometimes it's people, sometimes it's animals, sometimes it's chemistry and microbiology.
04:19And we tried to give that spirit to this show, but somehow unify it and connect it all
04:25to remind us all that it's one big system.
04:28And what did you learn through the process of the show that kind of shocked you or amazed you?
04:36Every episode, there's something that's just mind-blowing.
04:40Just that there's been this exact amount of oxygen on the planet, 20.85 percent or some
04:48small fraction, but that it's maintained this, for some reason, that we actually don't know
04:53the reason, to all that was living on Earth for three and a half billion years was bacteria,
05:00to the first episode has this whole thing about diatoms, which are these little creatures
05:05that basically are responsible for most of the oxygen that we breathe.
05:08What were some of the things, you know, there's, and endless, I mean, to me, one of the big
05:13things is how connected or how responsible living creatures are for everything that we
05:18take for granted as being the planet, the color of the sky, the dirt, the ground, the way
05:26that rivers flow, that all comes from life and contrapuntally that everything in us, that
05:34living creatures are affected by this planet in ways that we don't understand.
05:37So seeing how interconnected everything is, it was pretty eye-opening, and as Darren said,
05:41every episode has something, and I know a lot of scientists who watch the show and say
05:47that they learn things, and I also know a lot of kids who watch the show and are able to
05:53take it in at the same time.
05:54So it's nice to be able to reach that across those divides.
05:58At one point, they took jellyfish into space, and the jellyfish that were born into space when
06:03they came back to Earth would no longer like the jellyfish in the sea, because it's
06:07because they didn't know which way was up or down.
06:09Oh, wow.
06:10So it poses the question, what is it going to mean for humans when we're born in space?
06:16Will we still be Earthlings?
06:18Right.
06:18And there's so many interesting speculations about that on the show, about what it's going
06:24to be like for the first generation of people who were born off the Earth.
06:28Yeah.
06:29That's right.
06:30It's trying to underline a little bit or ask the questions of how separable are we from
06:35the Earth and how reliant is the Earth on our behaviors for its ability to keep going in
06:41the way that we're used to.
06:43Are there any theories about space that you still can't wrap your head around or can't
06:47understand?
06:49Most of them.
06:49Probably most of them.
06:50Exactly.
06:52Like 98% of everything is dark matter that we don't know what it is?
06:56Right.
06:56That's a good one.
06:57We also did a VR project this year called Spheres where we tried to take the audience to
07:04far off places in the universe, being in the center of two black holes colliding way over
07:11my head, but really cool experience.
07:14Yeah.
07:14You know, it looked pretty.
07:16One of the things that all the astronauts said on the show is that if given the opportunity,
07:21they would go back to space.
07:23Mm-hmm.
07:24Would you want to go to space?
07:25Absolutely.
07:25Absolutely.
07:26Wouldn't you?
07:26I was going to ask, have you been to space?
07:29It depends on how to find space.
07:31Not yet.
07:31Exactly.
07:32Close.
07:34Yes, I would too.
07:36Yes.
07:37Absolutely.
07:37I think most people would.
07:39I think there's something really magical about that notion.
07:42I think people do want to break their mindset and see things from a different perspective.
07:49Mm-hmm.
07:49And hopefully the show lets people do that in a certain way even without leaving.
07:54Yeah.
07:54How did Will Smith become involved in the project?
07:57We knew that there was a lot of science.
08:02And we wanted to figure out a communicator who could really sort of connect with some
08:08of the intense stuff and make it really exciting.
08:12And Will just seemed perfect for it because he was able to take all of this information
08:19and really communicate it to pretty much everyone in an exciting way.
08:24Mm-hmm.
08:24And then beyond that, we were blessed because we only had a small amount of time because
08:29of schedules to work with him.
08:31But he's just a complete gentleman and totally game and definitely just an incredible actor
08:38to work with.
08:40Mm-hmm.
08:48Mm-hmm.
08:49And if you're moved into the idea of conservation or protecting the environment because of watching
08:55this show, where do they start?
08:57Where is a good place to start?
09:00You mean in their behaviors and in their life?
09:02In behaviors, in their lives, how they can help?
09:05The first thing to do is to vote for people who believe in science.
09:09That's the most important thing you can do and to tell everyone you do.
09:13Science has become political, but it's not political.
09:18Science is a way of observing the world and then turning those observations into conclusions
09:25of how things work, and then you can invent things like cell phones and health care and
09:30all of these other things that have just changed our lives for the better since the scientific
09:36method was discovered and has been being used.
09:40So, yet there are people for many different reasons not sort of cherry-picking science.
09:49And we saw, you know, Galileo, they stuck in prison for a long time for looking up at
09:55the stars.
09:56And now people are sort of, you know, voting and making choices, you know, not based on
10:06science.
10:06So I think that's the first thing is just to make sure whoever you're voting, whoever
10:10represents you, believes in science.
10:11You know, NASA doesn't just send spaceships out to Mars and to Venus and take pictures.
10:17One of the big things that they've always done is they put satellites around this planet
10:21and they study the planet that's closest to us, which is this one, to understand how it works.
10:25And that part of NASA, the one that monitors and looks at this planet, the one that gives us all
10:30the
10:30information that's in this show, that part has been cut.
10:34Because people...
10:35They don't want that information.
10:36They don't want to know because it's going to say things that aren't going to let them buy
10:41and sell some of the things they want to buy and sell.
10:44So allowing science to inform us and to be the vehicle for appreciating beauty and understanding,
10:54that's a key component.
10:56And then just to try and live with respect and awareness of the complexity and the beauty
11:02around you.
11:03You know, it's also a very good thing to do.
11:06Yeah.
11:06That's the small contribution, but governments are what's going to save us.
11:11And being part of the Paris Agreement was a huge step forward.
11:15And now that we're the only country on the planet that is not part of the agreement is...
11:20just tells you something that's going on.
11:23Why does...
11:24Why does every other country agree with it except for us?
11:28Mm-hmm.
11:30Yeah.
11:30Well, thank you for an informative and really visually stunning and kind of mind-changing,
11:37a game-changer of a show.
11:39Thank you very much.
11:41Nice to meet you too.
11:42Pleasure.
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