A new teaser has been released for Project Blue Book, the X-Files meets Mad Men sci-fi drama, which premieres Stateside on the History Channel on Tuesday January 8.
The star turn is Hot Press' 2018 Irish Actor of the Year, Aidan Gillen, who can't wait for us to see it! With Watchmen and The Man In The High Castle’s Laura Mennell and Michael Malarkey of Vampire Diaries renown also on board, there’s a definite whiff of smash hit about it.
“Project Blue Book is set in the 1950s and centres around the emergence of the UFO phenomenon,” Aidan tells us. “Concerned about this phenomenon and the hysteria it was creating, the US Air Force and the government set up an agency to take reports and follow them up. I’m playing Allen Hynek, the guy they hire to front it who starts out a thoughtful sceptic and comes one of the leading proponents of the UFO movement or the ‘UFOlogists’. One of his books, The UFO Experience, inspired Spielberg to make Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Allen Hynek was the technical advisor and appeared in it.
“The guy who made Back To The Future, Contact, Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump is behind it. It’s popular entertainment but not saccharin. A lot of good directors and actors, and an interesting period to be dealing with. Post-World War II, people in America were looking forwards, backwards and upwards. They were optimistic but also, in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in dread of what could be coming out of the sky at them next.”
Meanwhile, Aidan is being honoured by the US-Ireland Alliance at the 14th Annual Oscar Wilde Awards, which are being held on February 21 at JJ Abrams' Bad Robot Studios in Santa Monica.
“Aidan’s body of work is rich with a range of diverse and memorable roles that span television, theatre and film," notes Trina Vargo, founder of the US-Ireland Alliance. "While his career his taken him to London, Los Angeles and beyond, he has remained loyal to working Ireland as well.”