Development and casting
In 2015, producer Donna Gigliotti acquired Margot Lee Shetterly's nonfiction book Hidden Figures, about a group of Black female mathematicians that helped NASA win the Space Race.[6] Allison Schroeder wrote the script, which was developed by Gigliotti through Levantine Films. Schroeder grew up by Cape Canaveral and her grandparents worked at NASA, where she also interned as a teenager, and as a result saw the project as a perfect fit for herself.[7] Levantine Films produced the film with Peter Chernin's Chernin Entertainment. Fox 2000 Pictures acquired the film rights, and Theodore Melfi signed on to direct.[6] After coming aboard, Melfi revised Schroeder's script, and in particular focused on balancing the home lives of the three protagonists with their careers at NASA.[7] After the film's development was announced, actresses considered to play the lead roles included Oprah Winfrey, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Taraji P. Henson.[6]
Chernin and Jenno Topping produced, along with Gigliotti and Melfi.[8] Fox cast Henson to play the lead role of mathematician Katherine Goble Johnson. Spencer was selected to play Dorothy Vaughan, one of the three lead mathematicians at NASA.[9] Kevin Costner was cast in the film to play the fictional head of the space program.[10] Singer Janelle Monáe signed on to play the third lead mathematician, Mary Jackson.[11] Kirsten Dunst, Glen Powell, and Mahershala Ali were cast in the film: Powell to play astronaut John Glenn,[12] and Ali as Johnson's love interest.[13][14]
Filming
Principal photography began in March 2016 on the campus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.[15] Scenes were also shot on location in Historic Downtown Canton, Georgia.[16] Filming also took place at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics at Dobbins Air Reserve Base.[17] Jim Parsons was cast in the film to play the head engineer of the Space Task Group at NASA, Paul Stafford.[12] Pharrell Williams (a native of Virginia Beach, near Langley Research Center[18]) came on board as a producer on the film. He also wrote original songs and handled the music department and soundtrack of the film, with Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch.[19] Morehouse College mathematics professor Rudy L. Horne was brought in to be the on-set mathematician.
