Everyone’s Favorite Alien Could Win An Oscar

In a feel-good moment for movie fans, it was announced on Wednesday that puppeteer James Ortiz is eligible for a Best Supporting Actor award at next year’s Oscars, per Variety. Ortiz was the puppeteer and voice actor for the rock-shaped alien, Rocky, who became one of the best-loved parts of Amazon’s smash hit “Project Hail Mary” last month.

The film is expected to garner plenty of other nominations at the next Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Ryan Gosling, Best Picture, and Best Director. There’s no telling if the Academy will select Ortiz as a nominee even though he is technically eligible.

Variety also noted that his work could be recognized in the Special Achievement Award category, which was last given to “Toy Story” (1995).

“Typically, we talk about puppetry as a technical achievement, and it is,” Ortiz told the outlet.

“It’s a spectacle,” he added. “For me as a performer, however, that’s never my entry point. I’m interested in the heart of the character — what they’re trying to communicate, what they’re feeling underneath all of it. When we can take a medium like puppetry, which is often seen as decorative, and bring to life a character with a beating heart in a way that genuinely affects people, then we’re doing something truly meaningful.”

Ortiz previously discussed how much expertise and planning went into bringing Rocky to life. Fans of the film praised its overall authenticity, which included using a real puppet rather than relying on CGI.

“Rocky is super intelligent and has a mind like a computer — you never have to say anything twice to him,” Ortiz said of the character. “He’s a brilliant engineer. But his soul, to me, always felt like that of a little brother. There’s a little bit of this anxious, 14-year-old boy who really wants to be invited to the party.”

“What I loved about the process was at no point did [directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller] or anybody on the team ever treat me like I was a technician, or like a plumber who was brought in to fix a specific thing,” the puppeteer added. “At every point they would ask, ‘what do you think, would Rocky do this or that?’ And I’d think about it and tell them exactly how Rocky would feel.”

“Project Hail Mary” dominated the box office last month with an $80.5 million domestic opening weekend, with a 95% critic score and a 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. By the second weekend, the film had crossed $300 million worldwide and became the second-biggest non-franchise opening over the past decade, second only to “Oppenheimer.”