Pablo Schreiber has been cast to star as astronaut Jim Lovell in 'First Man'.

Pablo Schreiber

Pablo Schreiber

The 39-year-old 'American Gods' actor has joined 'La La Land' star Ryan Gosling in the new Neil Armstrong biopic by Damien Chazelle about the first men on the moon, Deadline reports.

Lovell is best known as the commander of Apollo 13 and is one of only 24 people to have flown to the moon, and the first ever man to have flown there three times without making an actual landing.

The astronaut has already been portrayed on the big screen by Tom Hanks in Ron Howard's 1995 movie based around Apollo 13's lunar mission.

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

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 tumour. Neil died in 2012 when he was 82.

'First Man' is slated to be released by Universal in October next year.