As historical romance series “Outlander” prepares to close its eight-season run next year, Starz has primed a new generation of talent to carry on the beloved franchise with prequel series “Outlander: Blood of My Blood.” And the cast of the new series is more than ready to tackle the challenge.
Centering on the love story between the parents of the flagship series’ Jamie and Claire — roles made famous by Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe — “Blood of my Blood” introduces Harriet Slater and Jamie Roy as Ellen MacKenzie and Brian Fraser, star-crossed lovers from rival clans; as well as Hermione Corfield and Jeremy Irvine as Julia Moriston and Henry Beauchamp, the married couple whose paths first crossed in the throws of WWI and face a new challenge after they are split up by time travel. While on a holiday to the Scottish Highlands, Julia and Henry are transported back to the early 18th century, when Ellen and Brian’s first fated meeting takes place.
Joining such a beloved franchise came with some pressure for the new series leads, who paused production on Season 2 for a round of press in Los Angeles, but Irvine noted it was ultimately a privilege to have the built-in fan base. “We spend our lives doing shows just hoping that someone will see it, so to join something with that existing audience … it’s so nice to know that people are going to watch what you’ve been doing for the last year or two of your life,” he told TheWrap for our digital cover story.
“It just made us all want to do a really good job — I think it made us work harder,” Slater noted, while Roy added, “There was a bar that we had to reach — we knew our show was going to be its own thing, but also pay homage to the original ‘Outlander.’ ”
While Corfield noted having the original series was instrumental in understanding the tone of “Blood of My Blood,” the new stars didn’t want their performance to match that of Heughan or Balfe’s too closely, with Irvine noting they didn’t want to “mimic” the other actors. In fact, Corfield and Irvine saw it as a blessing in disguise that their characters are thought to be dead in “Outlander,” giving them free rein to build out Julia and Henry.
With Jamie’s parents also deceased by the time “Outlander” kicks off, Slater and Roy similarly didn’t have a specific roadmap to follow for their portrayals of Ellen and Brian, respectively. But Slater said she borrowed the “essence” of Heughan’s Jamie as well as Jamie and Claire’s daughter, Brianna, and Jamie’s sister Jenny. “They’re all very complex characters. They have different sides to them, which is the best thing as an actor,” Slater said. “You can see where Jamie and Claire get all aspects of their character from — I think they borrow bits from all of us.”
“It’s a testament to the writing and also the casting,” added Roy, whose resemblance to Heughan was admired by fans throughout the show’s first-season rollout, which ended in October. “It’s given us all these little nuggets and things to really make the rules ourselves, without having to rely on … the original.”
Fairly quickly into “Blood of My Blood,” Slater’s Ellen and Roy’s Brian have their love at first sight meeting in a stable, a fairly unglamorous setting that Roy recalled as one of the pair’s favorite scenes. “These two characters meet each other, both feeling like outcasts at the time, and not only do they feel this immediate attraction, but it just happened at the perfect time,” Roy said. “There’s this instant attraction and magnetism between them.”
That magnetism is on full display during the couple’s second meeting, on a bridge out of sight from the society that keeps them apart, as Ellen and Brian play a sheepish dance of stepping closer together until they meet in the middle. The pair recalled shooting the sequence on a rainy day, and the roaring river underneath the bridge was so loud that they sometimes had to rely on reading one another’s lips so they wouldn’t miss their cues. But Roy recalled a serendipitous moment just as Ellen asked Brian for his name.
“As soon as that happened, the sun came out, and I saw my shadow, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s going to look good,’” Roy recalled with a chuckle.
Though Julia and Henry are already married with a child — a 5-year-old Claire, who is left at home with Uncle Lamb during their holiday — viewers still get a glimpse at the origins of their love story in the second episode, which sees Julia and Henry develop a bond deeper than most pen pals as Henry navigates WWI trench warfare. As the war progresses and Henry’s outlook becomes more and more grim, it’s Julia’s words — which meditate on literature, war and human nature — that serve as a lifeline for Henry. The pair don’t meet in person until Henry is granted leave to London, and Henry recognizes Julia in the midst of a busy city scene — a fated moment that Irvine admits he didn’t think would feasibly work.
“I phoned up our showrunner and writer, Matt Roberts, and said, ‘I don’t know if that line’s going to work,’ and he went, ‘Just trust me, there’s going to be … magic in it,’” Irvine said. “As soon as I understood that, the show made sense to me.”
Corfield noted that the “epic scale” of the scene, which featured period-specific sets of London that embraced the “heightened romanticism” of their love at first sight moment, made the line work as well.
“It’s almost slightly out of reality — that’s why this show is so appealing: It’s got this completely uncynical, almost fairytale-esque look at love stories, which is, I think, quite refreshing these days,” Irvine continued, joking that Brits are an especially cynical bunch. “It’s quite nice to delve into that world where true love and love at first sight really exist.”
Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, “Blood of My Blood” features a handful of unbridled sex scenes — a first for most of the actors.“I’ve done a few but I definitely did, I think, as many again on this as I have done in the rest of my career,” Irvine joked.
Though the actors admitted the influx of intimacy scenes was initially “terrifying,” each scene felt justified and never gratuitous. Roy noted that the viewer can track how each character changes and develops with each intimate scene. “If they don’t, then the scenes shouldn’t be there, because what’s the point?”
“It’s been done really well in Season 1,” Roy said. “All those scenes have been really pivotal points of the season for both sets of character stories, and it’s so nice to see the way that they turned out, because they do make a big impact on the show.”
The intimate sequences are eased by trusted scene partners that the actors have found in their respective matches. “You feel safe because you’re with people that you know and trust and also that you can laugh with as well, because I think it’s so important — there’s going to be awkward moments when you’re doing it, so we have a laugh,” Corfield said.
Those trusted scene partners became increasingly important throughout the series, as each character goes through their own trials and tribulations, including Julia’s birthing scene that saw her getting yelled at by housemaids and Ellen’s virtue test. While the actors can call out several difficult scenes over the course of the first season, it’s a challenge they were more than willing to take on. “The more difficult it looks, the more fun [it is] for us,” Irvine said. “We want scenes like that — that’s what we do it for.”
With “Blood of My Blood” picked up for a second season by Starz prior to its premiere in August, production kicked off on new episodes just as “Outlander” fans and new viewers alike watched the first installment, providing a burst of encouragement for the cast.
The actors said Season 2 will pick up right where the Season 1 finale left off, and will feature some key Scottish historical moments with plenty of classic “Outlander” longing, according to Roy, as the “Outlander” world keeps expanding.
“The scale of Season 1 felt enormous, but this next season we’ve done has been on a whole other level,” Irvine said. Corfield added that after establishing the main characters, there’s scope to explore each character and family even more in the second season, which he called “epic.”
As “Outlander” prepares to unveil its eighth and final season this March, “Blood of My Blood” is well-positioned to keep the legacy going on Starz, and the actors are more than keen to fill the gap in longtime viewers’ hearts.
“As long as there’s more story to be told, I think we’re all happy to keep telling the story.” Roy said.
“Outlander: Blood of My Blood” Season 1 is now streaming on Starz.
