rocky

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Ron DeSantis was once the future of the Republican Party, a battle-tested conservative twice elected as governor of Florida. Then Donald Trump steamrolled him on his way back to the White House.

Now, more than two years after DeSantis ended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump, the governor has called a special legislative session on redistricting and other issues that will put him back in the national spotlight and maybe remind Republicans that he could lead the party one day.

But there are also plenty of risks involved for the 47-year-old governor, and they became immediately apparent after lawmakers convened Tuesday.

DeSantis is pushing state lawmakers to redraw Florida’s congressional map as part of a coast-to-coast redistricting battle ahead of November’s midterm elections. His proposal, released the day before the session began, would make it easier for Republicans to win up to four more seats, equivalent to Democrats’ potential gains from last week’s referendum in Virginia.

The governor also wanted lawmakers to adopt new regulations for artificial intelligence and loosen vaccine requirements. However, his proposals quickly hit a roadblock when House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Republican but not a DeSantis acolyte, told members that he would not advance any legislation on those issues.

Perez said the governor’s maps are on a fast track, with a House vote expected Wednesday, but some Republicans are worried that a gerrymandered map will backfire and make it easier for Democrats to pick up seats, something that would be a black eye for DeSantis.

He already faces tough prospects on the national stage, even with Trump constitutionally barred from running for a third term in 2028. DeSantis has had a relatively low profile during Trump’s second presidency and would likely have Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, another Floridian, to contend with in a Republican primary.

“The window for Ron looks reasonably narrow at this point,” said Whit Ayres, who served as DeSantis’ pollster in his first campaign for governor in 2018.

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. But the governor has at least embraced the national redistricting fight. When House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) last week dared Florida Republicans to go ahead with their special session, the governor punched back with the kind of aggressiveness he showed in the early days of his failed White House bid.

“I will pay for you to come down to Florida and campaign,” DeSantis said of Jeffries. “I’ll put you up in the Florida governor’s mansion. We’ll take you fishing.”

DeSantis wants four more Republican seats

DeSantis unveiled his proposed congressional map to Fox News on Monday even before it had been widely circulated among lawmakers. He argued that the 2020 census shortchanged the state’s population, making it necessary to redraw the lines.

The governor’s map, if approved, would reshape districts in Democratic areas around Orlando, Tampa Bay, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The changes could cost Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, among others, their seats.

The current maps yielded a 20 to 8 Republican tilt in 2024. DeSantis’ version would aim for an advantage of 24 to 4.

DeSantis first announced the special session in January, months after Trump started pushing Republican-run states to redraw their congressional boundaries. What followed has been a tit-for-tat battle, with each party looking for an edge in the midterms.

The Virginia referendum celebrated by Democrats is facing a court challenge. Another legal battle is playing out in Wisconsin, where Democrats also hope to pick up another seat or two.

There’s no guarantee that new maps will play out the way parties hope. For example, Texas based its revised lines largely on Trump’s performance in 2024, theoretically redistributing the president’s voters across more districts to pull them into the Republican column. But Trump’s popularity has waned since his reelection, including among Latino voters who figure prominently in the state.

Florida could face a similar conundrum. Creating more majority-Republican districts but with thinner margins could dilute GOP advantages and give Democrats more opportunities to win seats, especially if there’s an anti-Trump backlash at the polls this year.

Karl Rove, a former top political advisor to President George W. Bush, warned that if Florida Republicans get too aggressive, “they may lose a seat or two.”

Brian Ballard, an influential Florida lobbyist who has been DeSantis’ top fundraiser, said it’s worth remembering that DeSantis was the muscle behind the current map that expanded Republicans’ advantage in the state.

“He’s incredibly smart and capable,” Ballard said. “And he doesn’t get enough credit for that map. He’s done this before.”

Florida legislative leaders are not rubber stamps for DeSantis

As it did Tuesday, the Florida House has grown more willing to buck the governor in recent sessions. Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton made clear for weeks that they were not drawing their own proposals and would react only to what DeSantis put forward.

Albritton sent multiple memos to senators reminding them of Florida’s state constitutional limits on redistricting and the requirement that it not be done as a blatantly partisan act.

Perez sidestepped questions Tuesday about whether the maps violate those requirements, which Florida voters approved by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in 2010. Democrats and political advocates have promised legal challenges.

Beyond redistricting, DeSantis was effectively asking House members to approve AI and vaccine proposals that they refused even to advance out of committee earlier this year.

On AI, DeSantis wanted to require tech companies to ensure children cannot interact with chatbots without parental permission. He also wanted to prevent AI from generating harmful material for minors. That proposal put DeSantis at odds with Trump, who wants the federal government to be the regulator of AI technology. Perez said he sides with the president, calling AI a “national security issue” that is “bigger than just one state.”

On vaccines, DeSantis wanted to add a conscience-based exemption to public school vaccine requirements, similar to the existing religious exemption. That aligns him with the anti-vaccine portion of the Trump base that was instrumental in making Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the U.S. Health secretary.

Perez countered that vaccine requirements in the U.S. “have been working for decades” and said he remains uncomfortable with “children being in school without measles and mumps and polio and chickenpox vaccines.”

Political observers are watching — even at the White House

Ballard downplayed any political concerns for DeSantis. What may seem to some as strained relations with certain Republican legislative leaders, he said, is simply measuring DeSantis against the opening years of his tenure.

“I mean, he went from batting a thousand to maybe batting .600,” Ballard said, using a baseball analogy for the governor who played the sport while attending Yale. “That isn’t failure.”

During the last Republican presidential primary, DeSantis initially gave conservative establishment figures and key donors an option other than Trump, who grew frustrated by the challenge and mocked the governor as “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

But Trump seemingly forgave DeSantis when he dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump following his victory in the Iowa caucuses. He even promised to call DeSantis by his actual name.

There’s more bad blood within the White House, though. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, a Floridian, managed DeSantis’ razor-thin 2018 victory, only for the governor to have a falling-out with her.

Wiles did not respond to a request for comment. But Ayres said he’s certain she’s paying attention.

“Donald Trump has a long memory, and Susie Wiles has a longer one,” he said. “And that doesn’t bode well for Gov. DeSantis to be Donald Trump’s Republican successor.”

Barrow writes for the Associated Press. Scott Bauer contributed to this report from Madison, Wis.

Unruly salt-and-pepper hair in a long quaff, round glasses and broad smile give James Ortiz the look of a whimsical inventor, the kind that hides away in his workshop crafting extraordinary artifacts.

That description is essentially true; as a puppet designer and puppeteer, his job entails figuring out how to materialize figments of the imagination.

“I love playing characters that are so unbelievable that they have to exist in a different way,” says Ortiz on a video call from New York. “I love over-the-top characters and creatures.”

For more than 15 years, Ortiz has created puppets for theater projects in New York City, including those for “Into the Woods” on Broadway. His skill set has now made its way to the big screen with the box-office hit “Project Hail Mary,” an adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 sci-fi novel.

The space dramedy follows scientist Ryland Grace (played in the film by Ryan Gosling) who, against his will, is alone on a mission to save Earth with no return plan.

Ortiz, 42, plays Rocky, an arachnoid alien made of stone-like material, who befriends Grace. As the main puppeteer on set, Ortiz was in charge of moving its face or central carapace — and he also voices him.

Rocky and Grace don’t speak the same language. But when Grace figures out how to use his computer to translate Rocky’s sounds into English, the voice we hear coming from his jerry-rigged laptops is Ortiz’s.

Ryan Gosling in the movie “Project Hail Mary.”

(Jonathan Olley / Amazon MGM Studios)

“We had anywhere between three to six puppeteers on set with me. I would always be on the body, and they would always do the other limbs or legs,” Ortiz explains. “I needed to lead the thoughts and the dialogue and the feelings that Rocky was having.”

Thanks to both Gosling’s tongue-in-cheek charisma — as well as the curious and utterly sincere personality that Ortiz imbues into Rocky through his voice performance and intuitive puppeteering (with plenty of improvisation) — the movie becomes a disarming interstellar, interspecies bromance.

“I was always playing Rocky like the universe’s little brother,” Ortiz adds. “There was a little bit of a childlike thing that was being put in there.”

Over the years, Ortiz had developed a relationship with casting director Jeanne McCarthy, who often invited him to audition for acting jobs. Ortiz is a trained actor and has occasionally appeared on camera as himself, sans puppets. But every time McCarthy would reach out, he had a theater commitment. The timing finally worked when McCarthy mentioned she had an opportunity for Ortiz as a puppeteer in “Project Hail Mary.”

“I wasn’t familiar with the book, but then when I mentioned it to two of my friends, they knew everything about it,” Ortiz says. He soon met with directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord and had an immediate connection. “They are so delightfully immature that I felt like they were my cousins,” he says. “They are such artistic geniuses, but so silly and playful.”

For a chemistry read with Gosling, with the film’s producers also present, Ortiz opted for using a version of Rocky he had made himself, which looked like Thing from “The Addams Family” built off a fancy glove, instead of the larger puppet the production had available. That his hand version of Rocky could climb onto Gosling, and interact with the actor more directly, allowed for an amusing rapport to develop instantly between them.

Puppetry, Ortiz says, is intricately technical. When bringing a puppet to life, he’s concerned with the placement of the rods used to move the characters’ body parts, and in this case, he’d have to pay attention to where the camera is and where he and his fellow puppeteers have to hide. Amid all those preoccupations for his physical performance, Ortiz also had to deliver his lines and be present in the moment, reacting to Gosling with spontaneity.

Puppeteer James Ortiz plays Rocky, the adorable alien in “Project Hail Mary.”

(Jonathan Olley / Amazon MGM Studios)

“I promised Ryan that between action and cut, all of [the technical elements] were going melt away,” Ortiz recalls. “I said, ‘I’m just going to be an improvising partner with you. I’m never going to let you think that Rocky isn’t real, because I want this relationship to feel as playful and as dynamic as possible.’”

The more intricate Rocky puppet that appears on screen was later designed by Neal Scanlan, a legendary special effects artist, at the Creature Shop in London. Ortiz admits it was an adjustment to work with a puppet he didn’t design himself. Fortunately, Scanlan’s openness to involve him in the fabrication process made for a fulfilling experience.

“I had ultimately a lot of input, never on how Rocky looked, but a lot on how he was operated and what materials he was made out of,” Ortiz says. “I was able to pick what types of fiberglass we were using to cast him out of, because I knew, given the amount of improvisation that we would be doing on set, [that] I needed a puppet that could do anything.”

It’s not common for a puppeteer to voice the character they are manipulating. “It doesn’t usually happen because moviemaking is a business and you have to have names and sell it,” Ortiz says. Yet, as the post-production process advanced, and Lord and Miller started testing the film with audiences, Ortiz’s lines from set became the preferred Rocky voice.

Knowing that Rocky’s voice would come from Grace’s unsophisticated computer setup, Ortiz gathered inspirations, at times subconsciously, from a variety of robotic sources. These included Tik-Tok, a robot in 1985’s “Return to Oz,” one of his favorite movies.

“I have always valued my lifelessness,” Ortiz says in a hilariously monotone voice, quoting Tik-Tok. And there’s also a bit of the robot bartender from the futuristic world of “The Fifth Element” — “you want some more?” he says, making an impression.

Ortiz believes puppetry found him by accident. The youngest of three children, he grew up in Richardson, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, with a mother of Italian descent and a Puerto Rican-born father who met in 1970s New York.

“Interestingly enough, when I was growing up, there was a touring marionette theater of Richardson that was one of the first places that excited me towards puppets,” Ortiz recalls.

An introverted child, Ortiz grew up enjoying painting and handcrafts, as well as having an interest in engineering and how things are built. “My father was always in the garage building something,” he recalls. “We’re not talking like building a spaceship but building little simple machines.”

On multiple fronts, his dad has served as a source of inspiration. “My father was born in Puerto Rico and moved when he was about 4 or 5 to Brooklyn in the early 1950s,” Ortiz explains. “He was his mother’s translator. She didn’t speak any English at all. I have such admiration for him, because he was learning English in real time in school and helping his mother get through the day. It’s a powerful part of my narrative and something I’m really proud of.”

For Ortiz, this part of his heritage, his father and grandmother struggling to communicate with the world around them in a new city, connects with “Project Hail Mary.” He adds: “What I love is that there’s a little bit of that in Rocky, because so much of this story is about someone struggling to be understood and then ultimately being understood.”

Ryan Gosling stars as biologist-turned-schoolteacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace and Sandra Huller as mission leader Eva Stratt in “Project Hail Mary.”

(Jonathan Olley / Amazon MGM Studios)

In middle school, Ortiz enrolled in theater classes. Soon after, making marionettes entered the picture. “I discovered puppetry around the same time, because it’s sort of the center of that Venn diagram of crafts, fine arts, engineering and acting,” he says. For undergrad he attended Purchase College in New York to study acting in a classical program. After graduating, however, the phone wasn’t ringing with professional opportunities.

Ortiz’s first job out of school was working on Venezuelan-born theater director and filmmaker Moisés Kaufman’s 2010 production of Xavier Montsalvatge’s Spanish-language opera, “El gato con botas.” It was his self-taught talent with puppets that landed him the gig.

“I’m grateful that I’ve been able to have a pretty long career. I’ve been doing everything. There was one year on Broadway [when] I was doing all the special effects makeup; [another] I was doing set design.”

Puppetry, it turned out, moved from a supplementary expertise to Ortiz’s prime artistic strength. “I’ve worn so many different hats and what was interesting is that puppetry kept being the thing that invited all of me to work, as opposed to just a part of me,” he adds.

Since those early days, Ortiz has designed puppets for “The Woodsman,” which he also wrote, directed and starred in; “Disney’s Hercules” (for productions at Public Theater in New York and in Hamburg, Germany), and more recently for Lileana Blain-Cruz’s production of “El Niño” at the Metropolitan Opera.

Now that “Project Hail Mary” has launched the possibility of a fruitful Hollywood career, Ortiz’s only aim is to continue letting his abilities lead the way without inflexible expectations.

“I’m not a very calculated career person. I’m running towards bliss and then seeing what happens,” he says, smiling and running his hands through his imposing hair.