Why Astronaut José Hernández Picked Michael Peña to Portray Him in New Movie ‘A Million Miles Away’ (Exclusive)

NASA astronaut José Hernández says only Michael Peña could have played him A million miles awaya film about his life.

And the reason, he tells PEOPLE, is quite simple: He saw Peña in an orange spacesuit just like his in 2015. Martian.

“I said, ‘He already has experience. He was an astronaut!’” Hernández, 61, remembers telling screenwriter-director Alejandra Márquez Abella and the film’s producers A million miles away (in theaters and streaming on Amazon Prime Video on September 15). “Luckily they listened to me and contacted Michael and he agreed.”

Abella, 41, tells PEOPLE that the process of adapting Hernández’s memoir, Reaching for the stars: the inspiring story of a migrant worker who became an astronaut, started with Dream-casting Peña. “There was no other option in our minds. Michael is just the biggest Mexican-American star out there and I think it was the right choice from the beginning.”

Astronaut José Hernández.

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Plus, she says, “When you think about an astronaut, you never think that he might be like your uncle.” In Peña, the filmmakers found an actor who “looks like you, talks like you, or just has a familiar vibe.”

Hernández agrees that there is a daily connection with Ant man star. “I look normal,” he jokes. “You don’t want Antonio Banderas because people won’t have empathy for that person!”

“You get the crowd to tune in and root for the loser,” he says. “If [an actor is] normal-looking like me, then they’re going to pull it, aren’t they?”

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That Hernández became, as he points out, “one of 500 or so people, out of seven billion,” to see Earth from space lends itself well to the Hollywood treatment. Born in California to Mexican immigrants, he became the first traveling agricultural worker to enter space in 2009, as a flight engineer on NASA’s Space Shuttle mission STS-128.

A million miles away they might make the audience wonder what details of Hernández’s life are true. Thanks to his collaboration with Peña, Abella and her film crew, most did.

For example, he achieved his lifelong dream of entering NASA’s astronaut training program in 2001 on his 12th application after 11 rejections, and once covered a shift washing dishes at his wife Adele’s restaurant in Houston while wearing his space suit. (One detail not recorded: Hernández’s childhood love for Star Trek. “I’m a Trekkie,” he declares. “I thank William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Gene Roddenberry for that because they inspired a whole generation.”)

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The film also depicts Hernández’s youth spent picking lettuce, strawberries and grapes across California with his immediate and extended family. For Abella, those humble beginnings were key in illustrating the mentality and work ethic that fueled the astronaut’s journey to the stars.

“People think of great achievements in migrant communities as things that happen despite their background,” she says. “And I wanted to portray this story as one of becoming who you are because of your origin.”

José Hernández (far right) around 1969 with his brothers and grandfather.

courtesy of José Hernández

She adds that movie-going audiences don’t often see biopics about ordinary Latinos who achieve amazing things: “This is a whole life experience — of course in José’s story — but it’s also Latino and Mexican-American and the Mexican experience, which you don’t see a lot on big screens.”

That’s why Hernández believes A million miles away “a great honor” and hopes to “inspire and empower people”.

“It’s the embodiment of the American dream: if you come to this country and work hard, get an education, good things will happen to you. People always tell me: ‘You are the luckiest person in the world’. And my answer to that is, ‘It’s funny how the harder I work, the happier I am.'”

A million miles away is in theaters and airing on Amazon Prime Video on September 15.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education