José Hernández & Alejandra Márquez Abella Interview! We recently had the chance to speak with director Alejandra Márquez Abella and NASA flight engineer José Hernández, whose life is the subject of the film A Million Miles Away. A Million Miles Away is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
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We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
A Million Miles Away
Inspired by the real-life story of NASA flight engineer José Hernández, A Million Miles Away follows him and his devoted family of proud migrant farm workers on a decades-long journey, from a rural village in Michoacán, Mexico, to the fields of the San Joaquin Valley, to more than 200 miles above the Earth in the International Space Station. With the unwavering support of his hard-working parents, relatives, and teachers, José’s unrelenting drive & determination culminates in the opportunity to achieve his seemingly impossible goal.
RELATED: A Million Miles Away Movie Review: An Emotional & Inspiring Biopic
José Hernández & Alejandra Márquez Abella Interview
I know that your story has been out there for a while and people have tried to make your story but it was just never the right time. So what was it about this time that made you say yes?
José: It was all about the people who wanted to make it. The folks that approached me [were from a] film house called Select Films, run by Mark Ciardi, executive producer of our movie. They had just finished doing McFarland USA, they had done Million Dollar Arm, and Secretariat. So they had a nice pedigree of doing films that were inspirational. That’s when I realized this is the film house where my story can be told the way I wanted it to be told.
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It wouldn’t be a movie about becoming an astronaut without a training montage. Did you also work with NASA? Was that an actual training ground?
Alejandra: No, we built a set. We shot the whole film in Mexico around Mexico City or in Mexico City. We went to this humongous pool in Mexico City and we recreated the whole training. Which was more than challenging because we had to actually have people who could, you know, arrange that stunt and actually do that as they would do in a military facility. [It’s] a very sophisticated piece of training. It was fun, challenging, and long.
Listen to the complete interview below!
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