Ryan Gosling to play Neil Armstrong

According to Deadline, Universal Studios wants Ryan Gosling to star in their upcoming film about Armstrong.

It doesn’t exactly take a giant leap to imagine Ryan Gosling as an astronaut, more like a small step.

Neil Armstrong was a aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot who became NASA’s first civilian astronaut. Then, on his second and last trip into space he became the first man to walk on the moon. Of course, the traumatic tempo tantrums featured in that film made it an embarrassment of award season acclaim earlier this year.

Gosling is now working with Chazelle on “La La Land”, a musical set in contemporary L.A and starring Gosling and Emma Stone.

Academy Award nominee Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) is helming the project and will direct a script penned by Spotlight scribe Josh Singer.

“First Man” will be based on the historical Apollo 11 mission that resulted in Armstrong being the first human to set foot on the moon. That film is from Lionsgate and Summit and will debut on July 15, 2016.

First Man is based on the biography written by James Hansen, First Man: A Life of Neil A. Armstrong, and Gosling is already a part of Chazelle’s work family.