It’ll be no surprise to fans of Dan Stevens‘s eyes that he’s signed up to star in a film called Pale Blue Dot. The title refers not to his iris hue, however, but to the famous photograph of the planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe from over 3 billion miles away.
That’s because Pale Blue Dot is a drama set in the aftermath of a space expedition. Dan plays the earth-bound husband of an astronaut (ha! take that, traditional gender roles!), played by Natalie Portman, who upon returning to Earth after a mission, begins an affair with a fellow astronaut (Jon Hamm).
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the drama explores the notion that people who spend a long time in space can sometimes lose their connection to their family. Natalie’s character heads into a downward spiral, and things quickly get worse when her lover starts another affair with a trainee (Atlanta‘s Zazie Beetz).
That may sound a bit space-meets-soap-opera, but the film’s script is in fact inspired by an even more bizarre true story: In 2007, a real-life astronaut love triangle made headlines when a female mission specialist tried to kidnap her rival.
It’s being directed by Noah Hawley, the creator and showrunner of Legion, which stars Dan as a mutant with psychic powers — though Pale Blue Dot will likely be far less surreal and mind-bending than that show.
It’s also the third drama Dan’s signed up to recently, after a run of fun movies like Beauty and the Beast and The Man Who Invented Christmas. Later this year he’ll star in Apostle with Michael Sheen and Lucy Boynton, with punk rock drama Her Smell following in 2019.
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