Feeling Blue
Project Blue Book, a 10-part period drama, is based on the true, top-secret investigations into UFOs and related phenomena by the US Air Force in the 1950s and 1960s.
Inspired by the personal experiences of Dr J Allen Hynek, a college professor recruited to lead an operation codenamed Project Blue Book, each episode draws from the actual case files, blending UFO theories with authentic historical events.
In this DQTV interview, Aidan Gillen (Dr Allen Hynek), Laura Mennell (Mimi Hynek) and Michael Malarkey (Captain Michael Quinn) reveal how the series charts the emergence of the UFO phenomenon in the US, the hysteria it created and the government’s reaction to it.
Gillen talks about the influence of Steven Spielberg’s classic UFO film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and why he relishes playing real people on screen; while Mennell talks about how her character, Dr Hynek’s wife, is isolated in her domestic responsibilities until she goes on her own journey as her husband becomes involved in Project Blue Book.
Malarkey also discusses the show’s modern-day parallels, with Project Blue Book described as one of the first examples of ‘fake news.’
From executive producer Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) and writers Sean Jablonski and David O’Leary, Project Blue Book is produced by A+E Studios in association with Compari Entertainment for History. A+E Networks distributes the series internationally.
tagged in: Aidan Gillen, History, Laura Mennell, Michael Malarkey, Project Blue Book