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Being a massive fan of the beloved series, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the cast of Outlander! Season Seven, Part Two, will be premiering soon. We couldn’t get into spoiler territory, but we all shared our love and experiences from the show.
Guy Talk: The Men of OUTLANDER
Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie Fraser, and Richard Rankin, who plays Jamie’s Son-in-Law Roger Wakefeild, paired together, were a raucous duo. But when the questions started, they turned it right now.
NI: We’re coming out to the second half of season 7 and going to season 8. What has it been like for you as actors developing these characters over all this time? From where you started to where you are and where’s your mindset not only on but off screen?
RR: It’s a very real thing to have that opportunity to work for the character for such a long time. You know, I’m sure for 8 or 9. Sam has been for 10 or 11. So to have that thing for me, the biggest thing I take away from is the experience of that and what that offers you to have been able to be, you know, on our show it’s been so long run and you know the experience of being in front of the camera and in that environment and with people you’ve been working with for such a long time. Gives you the opportunity to practice your craft.
SH: What’s so I think because you’ve been on it so long, that actually not only do the characters for instance, of this season, we’re back in Scotland, we have so many memories and as characters, you know, and someone’s history, but actually as actors. I remember, you know where we first started shooting at Lallybroch and you know, it’s many years ago, so you know having to conjure up memories,you’re living it! There’s some scenes that you’ll see this the beginning of this part 2, where Jamie and Claire we’re back in the Laird’s chamber or back a Larry box going around, it’s like well reminiscing about that. Working with Stephen Cree, you know, we were talking on set about shooting many years ago in season, one which was kind of I guess one of the joys of working on the show for so long you have a in bulit content and memory that your not having to do extra work as actors. It’s a GREAT GIFT ACTUALLY!
At The Young Persons Table: The Next Generation in OUTLANDER
Sophie Skelton, as Brianna Randall Fraser, and John Bell, as Ian Murray we’re up next. Murray festooned in a fashionable kilt, specifically the Hunter Tartan, as his middle name is Hunter, and Sophie’s grandmother in fact was also a Hunter.
NI: So your characters coming in, and at different parts of the show. We’ve had Young Ian followed by Bri. What is it like for you to be able to portray your characters at different points in time with Bri being in different parts of time versus you, who had gone from Young Ian to “Lived through some $#1t Ian?
SS:Oh yeah,especially when I came in, we’re very lucky that we had the books and so we had that material to look at. So I knew that Brianna, I kind of I already knew that I looked the woman of Brianna was going to conquer some things in the first book. Where I was like, okay. You don’t need to throw that through a window and start breaking things I just found out so it was very fun to be able to already know up front how I was going to pitch the character and how could kind of unpeel the layers of Brianna. I feel like she’s a bit of a tough front of crack and she’s that have known in any season and feel back another way. So I really enjoyed that part of it and yeah, being able to then also intersperse that with being able to play a character in the late. 60s, 80s and 1700s is a really fun thing to play with, because as she’s growing, she’s also helping to then change her mannerisms and the way she speaks and dynamics to fit in with her time periods and that’s really fun challenge as an actor and for Brianna, and also it’s quite tempting as an actor to then almost do that too well, and you have to remember that the carrot is not an actress. Sometimes I like trying to get those slippers in Brianna, where she says things that Brian’s always telling me not to say the word, okay and I’m like, well, Bri is not an actor like she can’t just suddenly be like, okay. I’m in the 17 minutes now but completely monitor speech so I sometimes try and slide it in, but I do get innovation. Sorry, yeah, every second, yeah, but yeah, it’s a very it’s a very fun challenge because of no days, the same, so very lucky on this.
JB: Yeah, I mean, obviously. I stay in the 1700 so I don’t have quite as much fun as flipped into the 60s and 70s and the 80s or whatever. I tend to see, Ian journey is in 2 parts. You know, there’s the first part of his journey where he’s in Scotland and English America, he’s young, he’s adventurous, maybe a little naive. I that was so fun to play was that there was this whole other kind of side to his character when he gets back from living with the Mohawk and to be able to portray that story was like a dream as an actor to be able to learn from people in the Mohawk Nation about their culture. it was SO SO COOL! As we’re nearing the end of outlines there, I really feel like we’re beginning to faint the balance between the 2, again that he kind of comes into his final evolution.
Hanging with the Bosses of OUTLANDER
Author of the entire book series Diana Gabaldon and Executive Producer Maril Davis both talking about the world building of Outlander
NI: What has it been like over the tenure of the show to see the fan reaction?
DG: It’s so excited to see people so enthusiastic about this thing we made.
MD: Before we aired anything we had an event in Los Angeles and 2000 people showed up not having seen anything and that to me kind of encompasses our whole whole time here that fans have shown up. I mean, they’ve literally shown up with full. Time and we are very lucky for that, because not everyone has that hands-on me where they just and I said to the actors, it’s like I don’t think they realize they’re going to other shows that they might take our fans with them, but there’ll be fans from Outlander and they’re not necessarily fans, but it’s so supportive and it’s an experience that if you’ve not lived it, it’s you don’t realize how special with this.
NI: I can tell you from experience that when you last had the panel at Madison Square Garden, I felt bad for the other panels because fans were refusing to get up hours ahead of your panel just to see Sam.
MD: I love that. I just think it’s so like, and we’ve been very blessed. I mean, you know what I mean? I do not take that for granted.
Then there was Claire THE OUTLANDER Herself
Caitriona Balfe, the star of the show, was the perfect guest to finish off the interview. Of course after wishing her a happy belated birthday!
NI: Claire is one of the best female characters I’ve loved on television in a very long time. What’s it been like for you to portray her through all of the different stages? I mean, it’s a lot, and it’s got to be very demanding as an actor. How has that been for you on an off screen?
CB: I mean, it’s been amazing. You’re right. It is a demanding role in a demanding show, you know, our schedule is very intense and Claire, is like there sort of like they’re 99% of the time, but it’s been amazing. I you know I was such a novice actor I had a lot of experience when I got this show and I’ve had the best education, that you could ever get. I’ve been given the gift of every single possible emotion. You know so many different challenging scenarios, but you know, there’s so much action. There’s so much drama, but it’s also like the technical side of things, and you know, I think I’ve grown so much. It’s just been amazing, really amazing.
NI: Claire has gone through the whole range. What has it been like for you to start as an independent woman to marriage, being lost in time, from being a mother and then a grandmother. What’s the thought process for you to get into that mindset?
CB: I think that you’re living it with her you know, we’ve been filming for 11 years, so each time you do a scene, it’s like a memory that you built. It’s like that bank is getting richer and richer because you just keep putting stuff in. You don’t really get to do that with film. It was a lot like in the beginning, you know, there was an awful lot of imagination work that had to happen, and you would literally have to sit, put yourself in scenarios and imagine what that is as you go on, you sort of have to do that less. Occasionally, you will still have to if it’s in your situation. I’m daydreaming, is like a huge part of my job which is awesome because that’s one of my favorite things to do.
THE DROUGHT-LANDER is almost over!
That’s right check out the newest trailer here:
You can tell that after eleven years of doing the show, the cast still loves every minute of it, and let’s not forget that there is a prequel series, Blood of my Blood, still coming from Starz in the near future.
Thank you to Starz for giving us the chace to chat with this all star cast. Make sure you come back here to Nerd Initiative for all the Pop-Culture-Positivity from New York Comic Con 2024!
