One small step for man, one giant step for mankind — we could be talking about the first moon walk, or we could be talking about Ryan Gosling. Or maybe both, as Universal is eyeing the actor to star in their upcoming Neil Armstrong biopic from Whiplash director Damien Chazelle and Spotlight scribe Josh Singer.

Those are a few really great names, with Chazelle last film picking up a few Oscars last year and Singer’s Spotlight generating buzz in the current awards season, and Ryan Gosling being, well, Ryan Gosling.

Deadline reports that Universal is “courting” Gosling to play legendary astronaut Neil Armstrong in their upcoming biopic titled First Man. The project is still in the development process while Chazelle is filming La La Land, a romantic musical which marks the third on-screen pairing of Gosling and Emma StoneLa La Land takes place in Los Angeles and centers on a jazz pianist who meets and falls in love with an aspiring actress.

Chazelle replaced Clint Eastwood as director on First Man, which is based on James Hansen’s First Man: The Life Of Neil A. Armstrong, a fully authorized biography exploring the life of the famed astronaut and the Apollo 11 mission. The book is the result of over 50 hours of interviews with Armstrong and access to his close friends and family members.

Gosling appears next in Adam McKay’s The Big Short, and is set to star opposite Harrison Ford in Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2.

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