Puppeteer James Ortiz on becoming Rocky, the adorable alien in ‘Project Hail Mary’

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With his long, messy salt-and-pepper hair, round glasses, and warm smile, James Ortiz looks like a playful inventor – the type who spends hours in a workshop creating amazing things.

That description is accurate. As a puppet designer and performer, his work involves bringing imaginary characters to life.

I’m a huge fan of what Ortiz does! He was telling me how much he loves playing characters that are just completely out there – the kind that have to live in a fantastical world. He really thrives on those big, over-the-top roles and creating incredible creatures, and honestly, so do I!

For over fifteen years, puppeteer Ortiz has been crafting puppets for theater productions in New York City, even contributing to the Broadway show “Into the Woods.” Now, his talents have extended to film, as he created puppets for the successful movie “Project Hail Mary,” which is based on Andy Weir’s 2021 science fiction novel.

I’m so excited about this new movie! It’s about a scientist named Ryland Grace – Ryan Gosling plays him – and he’s basically been sent on a one-way trip to save the planet. He didn’t even want to go, which already makes it super interesting! It’s going to be funny and dramatic, and I can’t wait to see how he handles everything.

Forty-two-year-old actor Ortiz portrays Rocky, a stone-like alien creature, and develops a friendship with the character Grace. On set, Ortiz was the primary puppeteer, controlling Rocky’s facial expressions and body, and also provided the character’s voice.

Rocky and Grace can’t understand each other verbally. However, Grace discovers a way to use Rocky’s computer to translate his noises into English, and the voice that comes through his homemade system turns out to be that of Ortiz.

According to Ortiz, the team usually included three to six puppeteers working alongside him on set. He operated the main body of the character, while the others controlled the arms and legs. His main job was to bring Rocky to life by performing the character’s thoughts, speech, and emotions.

The movie is surprisingly heartwarming thanks to Ryan Gosling’s playful charm and the genuine personality that actor Jamie Ortiz brings to the character of Rocky through his voice work and skillful puppetry, which included a lot of on-the-spot improvisation. It all comes together to create a charming friendship between two very different beings from across the galaxy.

Ortiz explains he always portrayed Rocky as someone naive and innocent, almost like a younger sibling. He intentionally brought a sense of childlike wonder to the character.

Ortiz had built a connection with casting director Jeanne McCarthy, who frequently asked him to audition for acting roles. While Ortiz is a trained actor and has made a few on-screen appearances without his puppets, he was always busy with theater commitments when she called. Finally, the timing aligned when McCarthy offered him a role as a puppeteer on “Project Hail Mary.”

Ortiz hadn’t read the book before, but discovered two friends were very familiar with it. He quickly connected with directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord, feeling an instant rapport. He describes them as both incredibly talented and delightfully playful, like family.

When preparing for a scene with Ryan Gosling, Ortiz decided to use a smaller, handmade version of the puppet Rocky. It resembled Thing from “The Addams Family” and was built around a detailed glove. He chose this over a larger puppet the filmmakers provided because his version could climb onto Gosling and allow for more direct interaction, quickly creating a playful connection between the actor and the puppet.

According to Ortiz, puppetry is surprisingly complex and requires a lot of skill. When performing with a puppet, he focuses on precisely controlling the rods that move its limbs, while also considering camera angles and keeping himself and the other puppeteers hidden from view. On top of all the technical aspects, he also needs to deliver his lines and react naturally to his scene partner, Ryan Gosling, in the moment.

You know, I told Ryan I wanted to make things feel totally natural on set. I promised him that all the technical stuff – the cameras, the lights, everything – would just disappear for both of us. I really wanted to be a scene partner who could just improvise and react with him, and I kept saying I’d never break the illusion that we were really living in Rocky’s world. The goal was to make our connection feel spontaneous and alive, you know, really playful and dynamic.

The detailed Rocky puppet seen in the film was created by renowned special effects artist Neal Scanlan and his team at the Creature Shop in London. While it was initially an adjustment for puppeteer Pablo Ortiz to work with a puppet he hadn’t designed, Scanlan welcomed his input during the making of it, which Ortiz greatly appreciated.

I contributed a lot to the creation of the Rocky puppet, not to its appearance, but to how it functioned and what it was made of,” Ortiz explains. “I chose the specific fiberglass materials used in its construction. Knowing we’d be heavily improvising during filming, I needed a puppet that was incredibly versatile and could handle anything we threw at it.

Typically, puppeteers don’t provide the voice for the characters they control. As Alan Ortiz explains, this is usually because making a movie is a business, and recognizable names attract audiences. However, as they showed the film to test audiences, Lord and Miller discovered that Ortiz’s voice, which he’d originally used on set, was the best fit for the character of Rocky.

Since Rocky’s voice would be created using Grace’s basic computer equipment, Ortiz looked for ideas from various robotic sources, often without even realizing it. He drew inspiration from things like robots he saw on TikTok and a character from his favorite movie, “Return to Oz” (1985).

Ortiz jokingly describes himself as someone who ‘values my lifelessness,’ a line he picked up from TikTok. He also playfully imitates the robotic bartender from the movie ‘The Fifth Element,’ even asking in character, ‘You want some more?’

Ortiz feels like he stumbled into puppetry rather than choosing it. He was raised in Richardson, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, as the youngest of three children. His mother was Italian-American and his father was born in Puerto Rico; they met in New York City in the 1970s.

Ortiz remembers being first captivated by puppets as a child when a traveling marionette theater from Richardson came to town.

Ortiz was a quiet child who loved to paint, make things by hand, and explore how things worked. He remembers his father always tinkering in the garage, not with complex projects, but with simple machines.

Ortiz credits his father as a major inspiration in many ways. His father immigrated to Brooklyn from Puerto Rico as a young child in the 1950s and immediately became his mother’s translator, despite still learning English himself in school. Ortiz deeply admires his father’s ability to navigate a new language and culture while simultaneously supporting his mother, and considers this a defining and proud part of his family history.

Ortiz sees a connection between his family history – his father and grandmother’s difficulties adjusting and communicating in a new city – and the story of “Project Hail Mary.” He particularly appreciates how the character Rocky also deals with the challenge of being misunderstood, and eventually finding understanding.

Ortiz started taking theater classes in middle school and quickly became interested in making marionettes. He explains that puppetry combined many of his interests – crafts, art, engineering, and acting. He went on to study acting at Purchase College in New York, focusing on classical techniques. But after graduating, he didn’t receive many job offers.

Ortiz started his career working on Moisés Kaufman’s 2010 production of the Spanish opera “El gato con botas,” by Xavier Montsalvatge. He got the job because he taught himself how to build and operate puppets.

I’ve had a long and varied career, working in many different areas of theater. For example, I spent a year doing special effects makeup on Broadway, and another year designing sets.

Ortiz discovered that puppetry became his main artistic focus. He explains, “I’ve tried many different creative roles, but puppetry was the only one that allowed me to fully express myself, rather than just a portion of my skills.”

Since the beginning of his career, Ortiz has created puppets for a variety of productions, including the play “The Woodsman,” which he also wrote, directed, and acted in. He’s also designed puppets for “Disney’s Hercules” – for both New York’s Public Theater and a production in Hamburg, Germany – and most recently for Lileana Blain-Cruz’s production of “El Niño” at the Metropolitan Opera.

With the success of “Project Hail Mary” opening doors to potential film work, Ortiz simply wants to follow where his talents take him, without setting rigid plans for the future.

He doesn’t approach his career with a lot of planning. Instead, he follows what makes him happy and figures things out as he goes, often with a smile and a characteristic gesture of running his hands through his hair.

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2026-04-07 23:32