Ryan Gosling will go to the moon and back as Neil Armstrong in new biopic

Ryan Gosling has been confirmed to play the lead in the Neil Armstrong biopic. Amid Oscar buzz for his movie La La Land, the 36-year-old actor is set to reunite with director Damien Chazelle in First Man.

Ryan Gosling has been confirmed to play the lead in the Neil Armstrong biopic. Amid Oscar buzz for his movie La La Land, the 36-year-old actor is set to reunite with director Damien Chazelle in First Man, a movie about Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Armstrong’s second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11, the first manned Moon landing mission in July 1969.

The upcoming feature film is adapted from the book First Man: A Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James Hansen. Depicting NASA’s space program from 1961 to 1969, it is scripted by Josh Singer, the Oscar-winning co-writer of another true-story movie Spotlight.

Armstrong was a World War II vet who later became a test pilot. The movie is expected to explore the sacrifices and the cost - on Armstrong and on the nation - of one of the most dangerous missions in history.