ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with astronaut José Hernández about being the subject of the film A Million Miles Away. Hernández discussed the process of seeing his life story be adapted to film and entering orbit for the first time. A Million Miles Away is set to debut on Prime Video on Friday, September 15.
“Inspired by the real-life story of NASA flight engineer José Hernández, A Million Miles Away follows him and his devoted family of proud migrant farm workers on a decades-long journey, from a rural village in Michoacán, Mexico, to the fields of the San Joaquin Valley, to more than 200 miles above the Earth in the International Space Station,” reads the movie’s synopsis. “With the unwavering support of his hard-working parents, relatives, and teachers, José’s unrelenting drive & determination culminates in the opportunity to achieve his seemingly impossible goal.”
Tyler Treese: A Million Miles Away really turned out excellent. Your story is pretty remarkable, but what was your first reaction when you learned that they were going to make a film based on your life? That has to be pretty surreal.
José Hernández: It was like, “Wow, really? Me?” The next thing I had a concern about was, “Gee, is anyone going to watch it?” [Laughs]. “Is it interesting enough for someone to watch it?” So as they started developing the script … I’ve written my self-penned biography and I thought my book was pretty good, so I said, “This may have the makings of a good movie because it’s NASA-related.”
Space is sexy, it sells good, so I figured, “At least we’ll sell the NASA side of the house, and then we’ll just bring along my story.” But I’m glad. It turned out great, though. We actually did more of me than NASA, which I’m sure that’s what the director wanted to do. It’s actually a great piece of work that Alejandra Márquez Abella, the director, did.
Did you get to visit the set during filming?
Yes, I did. I went to visit it. I saw Michael Peña playing me, which, in itself, was surreal. So I had a chance to give some input with respect to what’s being said in dialogue and the set and those types of things. But also during the development of the script, I had chances to give my input, so I sort of appreciated the fact that, from the beginning of the project to the end, I was in there giving input and helping out in any way I could.
You brought up Michael Peña . Let’s discuss his performance because I’m more used to seeing him in more comedic roles. He knocks it out of the park in A Million Miles Away. What impressed you the most about the dramatic acting chops that he shows off here?
Well, he also had a sense of humor in that, because I have a bit of a sense of humor, so I captured a little bit of that. But he’s an awesome actor, isn’t he? I mean, he did a great job in portraying me. I looked up to the screen and I said, “Hey, he’s got my personality up there.” Then anyone who knows me will say, “Yeah, I see José up there.” So I’m so happy that he was the one that got selected to play me. Man, he hit it out of the park. Not to mention Rosa Salazar. When I saw Rosa play my wife, from a personality point of view, I saw my wife up there. I said, “That’s Adela.” Rosa took the time to do her homework. She spent time with my wife, so she nailed her personality to a T.
That’s incredible. One of my favorite scenes in A Million Miles Away involves Rosa. It’s where Michael’s talking about his dream. He says, “I want to be an astronaut.” And his wife kind of laughs because it does seem outlandish from the outside perspective. Is that something you really encountered in your life?
Yeah. You’ve got to realize that Adela was living on a farm. She’d been living in that same farm as a kid because her dad worked on that farm. That’s all she knew. I had just graduated college and I was just working professionally. So yes, it’s great that I was an engineer, but then to make that giant leap to be an astronaut, I think she really thought I was kidding. She did kind of smirk at me, and then I just kept a stone-cold face. Then she said, “Oh, I’m sorry, you really mean this.” And I said, “Yeah, I did.” And we never talked about it since until afterwards.
Then she asked that key question after I was ready to give up in my six rejections. She said, “What do they have that you don’t have?” And I didn’t know the answer. I said, “I better find out.” And that’s when I found out they were pilots, scuba divers, knew a third language — so that’s when I decided to invest in myself and prepare myself. The rest is history.
What I love about this movie and your story in particular is you achieved something amazing, but it’s not just all you. We see the support system, we see what your family did to support you. We see what your wife did to support you. Can you speak to just how great it is that this film shows the full picture and that the whole community and family allowed you to achieve what you did?
Yes, of course. I look at this as a communal family effort to reach this dream of becoming an astronaut. There’s no way I would’ve been able to reach it without the help of my parents. My dad gave me that five ingredient recipe, Miss Young coming to our house and telling my parents, “You need to stay in one place.” That was amazing too, because she’s changed the trajectory of the whole family.
And then of course, my wife asking me that question and propping me up after the six rejections and saying, “You need to keep going. You can do this. You got this.” So if anything, what I want people to take away from this is that I think the American dream is alive and well. Does it cost a little more effort to reach it? Yeah, maybe. But it’s there for our grabbing if we’re willing to work hard to achieve it.
When you actually made it to outer space, and we see this in A Million Miles Away, the reaction that Michael has is great. It has to be completely unbelievable that you’ve entered orbit. What was your initial reaction when you went into space?
Oh man, I had goosebumps all over my head. It was such a surreal feeling. Here I am, going around the world once every 90 minutes at 17,500 miles an hour and saying I’m one of about 500 people in the world down there of over 7 billion that gets the privilege of seeing our beautiful planet from this perspective as I float here inside the cabin. How cool is that? Man, I’ll tell you, you never get tired of floating in zero gravity because you feel like a superhero.
