Life’s Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal talk about sci-fi, wire work and the legacy of Alien

The poster for Life, the brand new sci-fi horror movie from Swedish-born director Daniel Espinosa, has a hand pressed against the glass visor of a space helmet. The rather nihilistic tagline runs: “We were better off alone.”

Immediately, thoughts turn to Ridley Scott’s Alien, with its original strap: “In space no one can hear you scream.” But where that was set in the far future, Life takes place in the present day. A group of scientists aboard the International Space Station discover there really is life on Mars. It arrives in what might be considered a fruitful period for Hollywood sci-fi, with the release of Arrival , Passengers , Rogue One and, still to come, Ridley Scott’s second Alien prequel, Alien: Covenant.

Life comes from the minds of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. “Two exceptional writers, I can speak first-hand of those guys”, says lead actor Ryan Reynolds, who collaborated with the pair on his mega-smash superhero movie Deadpool .

Reynolds, who also worked with Espinosa on the 2012 thriller Safe House, is an engineer/mechanic on the space station. Joining him are Jake Gyllenhaal as a doctor and the longest-serving member of the ISS, and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation star Rebecca Ferguson as a control disease expert. Also on board: Ariyon Bakare is the team biologist, Olga Dihovichnaya is the Russian commander and Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada is the flight engineer.

Reynolds compares the six-strong crew to a family. “I like the idea that hierarchies dissolve because there’s just a few people up there – you have to become a family whether you like to or not. Everybody comes in with a very specific point of view and mission… People are talking over each other, much like a family does. I think it requires the audience to lean in to the action as opposed to us just spewing it at them in obvious broad strokes.”