American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station become deadly adversaries after the outbreak of global war on Earth. A symbol of peace and scientific cooperation devolves into bloody conflict with horrific circumstances. I.S.S. posits a terrifying future scenario that, unfortunately, isn’t a fantasy or science fiction.

Ariana DeBose and award-winning director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Blackfish, Megan Leavey) relished making such an unnerving film. “I had never been given the opportunity to do anything like this before. I was so hungry to see if I could just stand on my own two feet as an actor and do something drastically different,” says DeBose. Cowperthwaite praises her star as an “honor to work with” and jumped at the chance “to play in a playground I had not played in before, with thousands of VFX shots. Russians and Americans have been up there saving each other’s lives, getting along, working shoulder-to-shoulder for decades. Can you maintain your humanity when you’re being told that your survival very much depends on somebody else going away?”

DeBose believes, “We talk about the Russian government. The people are not their government. The script was so compelling. It asked big questions of us as a society, how we relate to each other and other cultures.” The gracious and supremely talented DeBose was the brunt of a thoughtless, cruel, and pathetically unfunny joke recently at the Critics Choice Awards. Her response in our interview to audiences accepting her as an actress in roles without singing and dancing, like the upcoming Argylle and Kraven the Hunter:

I’ve prided myself on versatility. I never believe in being pigeonholed, and especially as a woman of color in this industry — you cannot allow yourself to be put in a box. I have more to offer, and I, by no stretch of the mind, think that everything I do is going to be an immediate slam dunk. But if I don’t try, to me, I’m not holding the door open, right? I have to continue to hold the door open, not only for myself, but for other people coming up behind me. And this is part of that. So I just ask people to keep an open mind, darlings.

Please watch above and read below our complete interview with Ariana DeBose and Gabriela Cowperthwaite.

Barbaric Survival in Space
I.S.S. Release Date January 19, 2024 Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite Runtime 1hr 35min Main Genre Sci-Fi

MovieWeb: Ariana, why did you want to play Kira Foster? Gabriela, what drew you to direct I.S.S.? It’s an out-of-this-world thriller but quite prescient, given current geopolitical problems.

Ariana DeBose: I want to play Kira Foster because I had never been given the opportunity to do anything like this before. You know, if anyone has followed my career, most of that is very musical-based. At the time, I was so hungry to see if I could just stand on my own two feet as an actor and do something drastically different. The script was so compelling. It asked big questions of us as a society, how we relate to each other and other cultures. Do we take things at face value, or are we going the extra mile to find the common ground? You know, for me, it brought up the fact that acknowledging my education, I realized, we don’t really talk about Russian people.

Ariana DeBose: We talk about the Russian government, right? I felt like that was very typical. The people are not their government. What do we do? We acknowledge the people. Then, of course, how do you react to the traumatic experience of witnessing the beginnings of World War III? This is a scientist, so you’ve got an emotional brain and a science brain as well. So I just thought these would be great challenges for me to take on, and this queen said yes to me. I so desperately wanted to work with an incredible, strong female director. I’m just grateful I got this opportunity.

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Gabriela Cowperthwaite: It was my honor to work with this one and my unbelievable spectacular cast. Yes. And in terms of why this movie? You’re right about the prescience. I do think that it was allowing me to play in a playground I had not played in before, with thousands of VFX shots. Space, I.S.S. specifically, is a fascinating thing that we as humans do. It’s a place where we’ve played well together with adversaries. Russians and Americans have been up there saving each other’s lives, getting along, working, you know, shoulder to shoulder for decades, and what an amazing petri dish of what humanity is capable of. They do fascinating things, love each other, and trust each other until they are told not to.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite: So there was something about that to me. Can you maintain your humanity when you’re being told that your survival very much depends on somebody else going away? Right, somebody else not being around? And how barbaric because that isn’t what they’re doing up there. They’re not. That’s not what they’re supposed to be doing up there. There is a true sort of love that these folks have for each other. I guess things like war or nationalism. It distills it into a group of six people who are told to play those directives out in real-time. That brings up a lot of questions about what’s happening.

MW: Amazing job, especially the visual effects and production design, because you’re having these fights in zero-g. Did you have to train on NASA’s vomit comet?

Ariana DeBose: I did not ride the vomit comment, but if she had asked me to, I would have. I would have needed some anxiety medication for it, but I would have done it. I honestly went back to basics, watched a lot of YouTube videos, and listened to a lot of firsthand accounts from astronauts and cosmonauts who have done this, their life’s work.

Ariana DeBose: But simulating zero gravity is very different than actually being in it. Every muscle in your body is working very hard to achieve the idea of weightlessness and inception; you are not in control of your limbs in zero gravity. It takes you wherever it wants to. So I think that would be fun to explore and play with. You had to sort of rank all of us. There were six of us in a tiny space because, kudos to our production design, they really recreated to the best of their ability. That’s the International Space Station, which is something I don’t know that I’ve seen another production do before.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite: That was a goal of mine to not make space feel sort of like aspirational. You know, sometimes sci-fi just goes in various sorts of clean lines, metal, and everything. There’s a bit of a perfection thing going on there. I wanted the exact opposite and completely messy, because that’s actually what the I.S.S. looks like.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite: That humanness is something that I wanted very much in terms of being tethered in fight scenes and stuff like that. That was tricky because I think audiences are used to seeing very quick fighting action-reaction stuff. We were charged with still giving the audience what they want that way, but in space you’re not going to move that fast in one direction. You can’t move in that direction unless something stops you. We’re having to play within those confines a little bit. It may still make it feel like an exciting fight scene. It was tricky, but folks like this one know what to do. I think being a dancer and living in her body was just phenomenal, as were my other actors.

Ariana DeBose: It was fun to think about the physics in the fight scenes. It’s not just, I’m gonna throw my body at you, or now I’m gonna use my legs to do this thing. It’s not that at all. It’s like, okay, I’m gonna let the inertia take me this way. I personally had a lot of fun with that.

Ariana DeBose’s Versatility

MW: Ariana, we have a lot of fans who love your singing and dancing. You have I.S.S., Kraven the Hunter coming out, a Blumhouse horror film, none of that has singing and dancing. You’re kind of branching out. What can you say to audiences to accept you in a different way from your Tony and Oscar-winning work?

Ariana DeBose: I think if anyone’s followed my career, and first of all, thank you to all the folks who seem to like me so far. I appreciate you, and it’s partially because of you all that I get to make movies. But I think if you know anything about me, that I’ve prided myself on versatility. I’m a very versatile dancer and performer in theater work. I don’t see any reason for that not to be the case in my on-screen work as well. And so I thought it was time. I never believe in being pigeonholed, and especially as a woman of color in this industry — you cannot allow yourself to be put in a box.

So the way that I chose to try and combat that is to just show people I have more to offer, and I, by no stretch of the mind, think that everything I do is going to be an immediate slam dunk. But if I don’t try, to me, I’m not holding the door open, right? I have to continue to hold the door open, not only for myself but for other people coming up behind me. And this is part of that. So I just ask people to keep an open mind, darlings.

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MW: We know that when it comes to space, there’s a lot of people that are into hyper-accuracy. Is the film’s depiction of the I.S.S. accurate?

Gabriela Cowperthwaite: I had Garrett Reisman, who was a NASA consultant. He was there with me from the beginning. I would run stuff by him that I wanted to do. I read his book, Endurance, and some other books. But Scott Kelly’s was fascinating. I got Kelly’s experiences and put them in the film. I was trying to get the human parts across as much as possible. What happened? Discomfort, the sleeping upright — all that stuff I put in there. I did try a bunch of that in terms of realism. There is some stuff that doesn’t happen, that couldn’t happen. I won’t tell you specifically because I don’t want you to see all my cards, but there are going to be some uber-smart people out there who are like, come on. [Reisman] said, “I think something like 90% is accurate and could happen,” which is very cool.

I.S.S. is very cool, too, and will be released theatrically on Jan. 19 from Bleecker Street.