Here’s how ‘Sign of the Times’ by Harry Styles wound up in ‘Project Hail Mary’

Hail Mary Project Harry Styles shouted so much, you might as well call him Hail Harry Project.

The first trailer for the sci-fi film was set to Styles’ song “Sign of the Times.” Gosling later performed it during his Saturday evening live monologue, while Styles watched. (Gosling also returned to SNL the following week to feature one of Styles’ musical performances.) Of course, all this Styles love comes from the fact that “Sign of the Times” appears in Hail Mary Project himself.

Based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir, Hail Mary Project centers on a last-ditch mission to save Earth’s fading sun from an alien microbe called an Astrophage. During an emotional scene leading up to the mission’s launch, everyone involved, including biologist Ryland Grace (Gosling) and project manager Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), gathers for karaoke. Nothing will soothe your worries about the end of the world like community singing!

In the scene, the usually business-minded Stratt takes center stage to perform an almost elegiac version of “Sign of the Times.” It is Screenwriter Drew Goddard’s favorite scene in the film, although he claims no credit for Styles’ song choice.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Goddard told Mashable in a video interview. “We knew we needed this kind of relaxing scene. I call it the ‘calm before the storm’ scene.”

Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller suggested karaoke for the scene and, Goddard recalls, just a few nights before filming, they decided to try to get Hüller to sing in the film.

“She said, ‘I’ll only do it if I can perform the Harry Styles song,'” Goddard said. “So it was Sandra’s choice, it’s crazy to think about, because it fits perfectly with the point of the film. It actually says ‘pierce the atmosphere,’ for God’s sake. I couldn’t have chosen a better song. It’s all Sandra. She chose it, and thank God she did.”

Hail Mary Project is now in theaters.