How Fly Me to the Moon Writer Rose Gilroy Won Over Scarlett Johansson

It’s easy to assume that a screenwriter with the last name Gilroy had an effortless foray into show business, but that was anything but the case for Fly Me to the Moon’s Rose Gilroy. 

As the daughter of Dan Gilroy and Rene Russo, as well as niece to Tony and John Gilroy, Rose attempted to steer away from the family business by trying her hand at pre-med and pre-law trajectories during college, but neither option ended up being in the cards for her. Upon graduating Colgate University in 2016, she then modeled for a stretch, but it soon became apparent that writing was in her DNA as well. After all, she’s also the granddaughter of the late Frank D. Gilroy, who won a Pulitzer and a Tony for his 1965 play, The Subject Was Roses.

So she started writing scripts, including a psychological thriller called The Pack, which is currently in development and has Alexander Skarsgård attached as director and star. (It’s unclear if Florence Pugh remains involved.) This sample, as well as a sci-fi script, eventually opened the door to a meeting with Scarlett Johansson’s production company, These Pictures, which is led by the actor and her producing partners, Keenan Flynn and Jonathan Lia. That’s when they pitched Gilroy on the general idea for Fly Me to the Moon, then known as Project Artemis, which revolved around a plot to televise manufactured footage of the 1969 Moon landing with the real audio from the actual Apollo 11 mission.

Gilroy was immediately taken by the NASA-set comedy/drama, but despite her interest and persistence, her lack of professional work and no WGA membership became barriers. So, as a last-ditch effort, she took the initiative and bet on herself.

“Ultimately, I was really green and not in the guild, so [These Pictures] were like, ‘We like your stuff, but this is such a gamble,’” Gilroy tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So I wrote the first 15 pages on spec with their pitch, and I won the job that way. We then spent years developing it internally just with Scarlett’s company before she even took it out.”

The project was originally meant to be a producorial effort for Johansson, not a starring vehicle, but she was so impressed by Gilroy’s drafts and note implementation that she couldn’t pass up the chance to play Kelly Jones, who is best summed up as Mad Men‘s Don Draper mixed with Better Call Saul‘s Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler. Needless to say, Gilroy was elated when the Lost in Translation star doubled down in response to her work.

“It was beyond my wildest dreams. I was totally shocked and in awe. The idea that Scarlett would be delivering lines from something I wrote — I’m still pinching myself,” Gilroy says. “I am convinced this is a really elaborate prank on me, so it was crazy.”

The film then became a reunion between Johansson and longtime friend/collaborator, Chris Evans, but the revolving door of Hollywood had its way, resulting in Channing Tatum joining as the male lead, NASA director Cole Davis. Greg Berlanti also replaced Jason Bateman in the director’s chair, and now, at long last, the outcome is a well-received romcom drama with the escapades of Ocean’s Eleven and Catch Me If You Can. And, at a time when our present-day real world is brimming with conspiracies and cynicism, Gilroy is proud to be a part of a patriotic film that celebrates one of America’s greatest accomplishments. 

That said, for a film that pokes fun at the Moon landing conspiracy, there, of course, had to be references to filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, whom conspiracy theorists still credit with staging the Moon landing. So the film features a couple lines in reference to The Shining filmmaker, but Gilroy is now revealing that there were early drafts of the script where Jim Rash’s fictional director character was originally Kubrick himself.

“There was an early draft where Stanley Kubrick was in it, but it was kind of kooky and didn’t feel right,” Gilroy shares.

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Gilroy also discusses the honest feedback that her family and friends provided her during writing, before explaining the origin story of Fly Me to the Moon’s feline scene-stealer, Mischief. 

So I’d like to get the Rose Gilroy story first. Did you resist the family business for a period of time, or did it always feel like a foregone conclusion? 

I resisted the family business for a really long time, and I took a traditionally academic path. I went to a small liberal arts school, pre-med, and I legitimately wasn’t smart enough. I tried so hard in all the classes and I just couldn’t get through them. I would work harder than everyone else and still get a C. So then I was pre-law, unofficially, and studying for the LSAT, and everything just got derailed when I graduated. So I really just started writing out of futility. I didn’t know what else to do, and it was the first thing that people said I was good at. 

I should also say that I worked as a research assistant for all four years of college, and I would not be where I am today had I not done that. So much of my inspiration and writing process comes from research and just being able to dig deep on a topic or a specific world. In the case of Fly Me to the Moon, it was NASA in the 1960s and the Apollo era. So [college] ended up being good for something else, and that’s the long and the short of it.

Most Hollywood backstories have a fair amount of overlap, and while I don’t mean to put you on the spot, you’re one of the few models turned produced screenwriters. Jessica Bendinger, who wrote Bring It On, and Sofia Coppolla are the only other examples I could find at the studio level. Are you aware of how unique this path is? 

I never thought about it that way. I really didn’t. I did model for a brief time, and I loved the people that I met and the friends that I made. So I have nothing against the industry, but I was just really lost during that time. It can be hard; it’s short money. So I am grateful that I found this and am able to have something else. All my friends would get promotions, and I would work a couple times a month on some editorial shoot, so I was grateful to transition out of it. But I never thought about it as unique. I don’t know why. 

In 2018 or 2019, you started with shorts and some TV, and then, in 2021, Scarlett Johansson’s company, These Pictures, generated the idea for this film and developed the story. How did the writing assignment ultimately end up in your hands? 

This was the first paid job I ever had. I was not in the guild [WGA] when I got this job, but I’d been writing for three-and-a-half years. I wrote The Pack before this, which is still with Alexander Skarsgård [as director-star]. So I had samples that were going around and gaining traction, and Scarlett and her two producers who run her company — Keenan Flynn, who also came up with the story, and Jonathan Lia — were taking general meetings with writers in L.A. They had read this kooky sci-fi script that I wrote and The Pack, and they were willing to meet with me. So they pitched me [writer] Bill Kirstein and Keenan Flynn’s original idea that they had come up with together. They had a rough pitch for it, and I was like, “That is so cool.” No one had ever pitched me anything for space and NASA, and I was so honored that they would even think of me for it. 

So I started harassing them for the job. (Laughs.) But, ultimately, I was really green and not in the guild, so they were like, “We like your stuff, but this is such a gamble.” So I wrote the first 15 pages on spec with their pitch, and I won the job that way. We then spent years developing it internally just with Scarlett’s company before she even took it out. So I got so lucky to get to work with her and develop it with her, and like the moon landing itself, this script was developed in the spirit of collaboration. So that’s how it happened.

You have people in your inner circle who can deliver a line for you out loud. They can also offer notes on a draft. Did you make those requests throughout the writing process?

Of course, I got notes — not just from my family, but from everyone. And, growing up in my family, I knew from my dad [Dan Gilroy] that this is not a glamorous job. It is hours in front of a computer screen, alone, and writing is rewriting. So I took notes from everyone. You have to get as many notes as you can. Also, the greatest thing that my parents and other people gave me was not BS-ing me. They just gave me the hard truth: “This is not good,” or, “This needs work.” So that’s how you get better. That’s the only way you can get better, aside from reading other scripts online. So I definitely got notes from people.

There was a time when Scarlett was only going to produce the project. So, what were the circumstances in which you heard that she not only loved your script, but also wanted to play Kelly instead of just producing? 

Well, it was beyond my wildest dreams. I was totally shocked and in awe. The idea that Scarlett would be delivering lines from something I wrote — I’m still pinching myself. I am convinced this is a really elaborate prank on me, so it was crazy. But I will say to her and Keenan’s credit, I handed in a draft and they gave me a lot of notes. There were a lot of notes after I handed in that first draft. And then, from there, I took those notes and I worked really hard to put them in. I then sent the script back, and then it was like, “Hey, this is feeling good.” So there were more notes from there, but she added so much to this character. Scarlett exists on every page of the script. So I was just blown away to get to work with her in that capacity, and the fact that she was going to play Kelly just blew my mind.

The comps for Kelly, at least to me, are Don Draper meets Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGil and Kim Wexler. (Kelly — like Kim on Better Call Saul — pulls off a grift using a fake pregnant belly.) Did you break her down that specifically? 

Totally. Don Draper was absolutely a part of the conversation. Leo’s [DiCaprio] character in Catch Me If You Can was another character in the conversation. So Don Draper was totally an inspiration, and that scene of Kelly with the belly was actually in the first 15 pages that I wrote on spec to win the job. So Don Draper and the idea of truth and lies totally inspired by that.

There was a time when conspiracy theories were mostly enjoyed as entertainment. But that’s no longer the case as there’s a new one every five minutes, and they’re anything but fun now. So I was quite relieved at how you cleverly dealt with one of the oldest conspiracies involving the Moon landing. Did you have a lot of apprehension about how to walk that tightrope, especially with NASA’s involvement hanging in the balance? 

I became interested in this project initially because I have a huge admiration and interest in NASA and the Apollo era and what they did and the significance of it. The human accomplishment of getting ourselves off this planet and onto another world really meant something to me. So I was never worried about the conspiracy element because my intention on every page was to try and honor and celebrate what NASA did on that day. You can still have fun with things, though. You can call things out and have some fun, and still make a film that is ultimately about the fact that the truth matters. I actually was not aware of how massive and far-reaching the conspiracy is, because, when I look at everything online, it’s so clear to me that it did happen. So it was always my intention, and the intention of everyone around me, to celebrate the Moon landing, and the conspiracy was never really in the forefront of my mind.

Once all the research and NASA materials came your way regarding Apollo 11, did the Moon landing conspiracy feel even more preposterous? 

Absolutely, just as a lot of conspiracies do. There was just never a doubt in my mind. A lot of times, when you ask somebody why they don’t think that we went, they’ll say, “Well, we never went back.” We actually went back six times, and it would’ve been seven had the EECOM system on Apollo 13 not failed. So it all plays into the part of the movie that people only really cared about this because it was a race with the Russians, and if there’s no funding and money, then the public doesn’t know about it. So we addressed it in an interesting, roundabout way that also honors what happened, and it was such a cool thing that America did. So this film feels patriotic to me. It celebrates what we did.

If you had to, do you think you could make a strong case to a denier now? 

Yeah, there are some things that are worth correcting, and if I was asked about it or spoken to about it, I’d try my best to again do what this movie does and celebrate what NASA did. I’m so honored to be in a country that’s part of that accomplishment, and it’s a bummer when people try in any way to diminish that. I’d also say, “Go see the movie,” because it’s okay to have fun with it and not take it too seriously.

You knew at some point you’d have to reference Stanley Kubrick, who is credited with directing the conspiracy theorists’ version of the Moon landing in a Hollywood basement. So how many permutations were there as far as Kubrick references? 

There was an early draft where Stanley Kubrick was in it, but it was kind of kooky and didn’t feel right. Of course, people straightened it out, but there was always an idea that there was going to be some line or some kind of a reference.

So Jim Rash’s frustrated filmmaker character likely evolved out of Stanley Kubrick?

Yeah, but I was talking years and years back. And thank God it did [evolve], because, oh my gosh, Jim Rash just blew my mind. And not to throw myself under the bus, but so much of his character was great improv. These lines just came out of the deepest part of him, and I was so grateful to work with him on this.

Fly Me to the Moon was once known as Project Artemis. Did you champion one title in particular? 

I love the title we went with. It’s romantic and beautiful and optimistic, and it really hits every quadrant for me. What they landed with just feels right, like it was always supposed to be that.

My colleague wrote a piece on the recent rise of cats on screen, and now your movie is another example of this phenomenon. When you were writing the feline character of Mischief, did you have any sense that a cat wave was coming by way of The Marvels, A Quiet Place: Day One, Argylle and Ripley?

(Laughs.) No, not at all. I’m so happy that it’s in the zeitgeist. Out of the spirit of collaboration, the end of the movie originally had a It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World-type comedy sequence happening. And Keenan, in one of his notes, was like, “This is cool, but what if there was something moving, like … a cat?” I then spit out my coffee reading that note; it was so funny. My grandma, who has since passed, had a black cat named Mischief, and he was always unplugging the TV and messing up your stuff. I then thought about the superstition of it all, so we threaded it all the way through, and I’m so excited to be part of this cat wave. There’s no better wave to be on.

Fly Me to the Moon is partially about faking it till you make it. The characters were doing that, as was NASA to some degree. Have you also recognized by now that most people are making it up as they go along? 

Yeah, definitely. I’m totally making it up as we go along. But Kelly is such a survivor, so you have to be. You also have to bend towards people, and sometimes, you need a little bit of both. Kelly has some amazing points, and Cole has some amazing points, but they have to bend towards each other. So that’s true in real life in a lot of ways.

As you mentioned earlier, The Pack is still making its way through development?  

Yeah, it totally is. Strike timing threw everything a little down, but I’m so excited. Alex [Skarsgård] is going to do an incredible job with it, and I have utter faith in him. So I’m very excited for that one as well.

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Fly Me to the Moon opens in theaters on July 12.