Cory Michael Smith Joins Ryan Gosling in Atlanta-Filmed ‘First Man’

Cory Michael Smith is set to join Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man.

The 30-year-old actor – who is best known for playing The Riddler in Gotham – is going to be cast as astronaut Roger Chaffee in La La Land filmmaker Chazelle’s space picture, Deadline reports.

Chaffee was one of the astronauts on board the Apollo program and served as capsule communicator for the Gemini 3 and Gemini 4 missions. In 1967, Chaffee died in a fire along with astronauts Virgil Gus Grissom and Edward H. White II during the pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission.

Not much is known about the forthcoming film as of yet but Hollywood hunk Ryan Gosling is set to play Neil Armstrong in the movie, which follows the glory and turmoil of him landing on the moon.

Pablo Schreiber also joins The Crown star Claire Foy, who has signed up to play the Armstrong’s wife Janet.

The motion picture will be based in the years from 1961 to 1969, the year Armstrong landed on the moon, and will look at the astronaut, his family and NASA’s efforts to get the man up on the orbiting rock.

First Man is an adaptation of James R. Hansen’s book, which was based on 50 hours of taped conversations with Armstrong, who grew to hate the fame he got after taking the “giant leap for mankind”.

Janet was married to Neil for 38 years before they split in 1994. They had two sons together and a daughter who sadly died from pneumonia after suffering from a brain tumor. Neil died in 2012 when he was 82.

First Man is slated to be released by Universal in October next year and is currently scheduled to film in Atlanta now through January 2018.